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  • tquid@sh.itjust.works
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    8 hours ago

    Two others I mourn the death of, as in, it’s more often done wrongly than not, at least on the Internet:

    “Led” as the past tense of “lead”: I basically never see it any more. People just use “lead” for the past tense; and

    Singular “die.” People just use “dice” for both plural and singular. Though I occasionally see plural “die.” I hate this.

  • jtrek@startrek.website
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    16 hours ago

    I’ve encountered a surprising amount of seemingly intelligent, successful, people recently who of their own admission don’t read books. They just watch short videos, maybe a movie, and read social media.

    I’m not a researcher but I expect that their vocabulary is stunted as a result.

    But they’re so weirdly proud about it. Like a defiant 12 year old who doesn’t want to do his homework.

    • cRazi_man@europe.pub
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      14 hours ago

      I’ve had a respiratory specialist with over a decade of experience tell me he doesn’t like reading and now doesn’t even like putting time into movies. He says there’s no need when you can see the highlights on TikTok and they shows you the best parts of the movie in a couple of minutes without having to sit through boring parts. All of this was unironic with him excitedly showing me how great his TikTok feed is.

    • thermal_shock@lemmy.world
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      14 hours ago

      Yup. My kiddo reads A LOT, and his lexicon is wild. He mispronounces things since he’s only ever seen it in writing, so we have fun with that.

      • jtrek@startrek.website
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        13 hours ago

        I (a man in his 40s) pronounced Lathe wrong the other day in a meeting when referencing the le Guin story “the lathe of heaven”. Someone privately messaged me after to say “great book. BTW, it’s pronounced…”

  • nialv7@lemmy.world
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    15 hours ago

    Fun fact, the current pronunciation of “lose” likely comes from people in the past confusing it with “loose”! Quoting the OED:

    The regular modern English pronunciation representing Old English losian would be /ləʊz/; the standard English pronunciation /luːz/ seems to be due to association with LOOSE v., which in some contexts (e.g. to loose hold) closely approaches this verb in meaning.

    Otherwise it would probably be pronounced as /ləʊz/ (similar to nose, pose, close, etc.).

    So people in the past doing the conflation - totally fine, accepted, and normal. Because that’s what you learned from the start. But people now doing the same kind of conflation - unacceptable, illiterate, stupid. Because that’s new and different.

    People are afraid of change, who knew…

  • nightlily@leminal.space
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    12 hours ago

    It’s never going to happen as modern English is six small children in a trench coat but it’d be lovely if there was a spelling reform like German went through. While there are one or two quirks (long/short unspelled vowels, no one pronounces -ig properly, Berliners insist on being weirdos), you can generally know exactly how a written word is pronounced in (standard) German.

  • FriendOfDeSoto@startrek.website
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    21 hours ago

    This will literally be the new literally, I guess.

    Spelling conventions have taken quite a hit in the age of automated subtitles. We’re devolving to the 1600s where this was more vibe based. I think there is also an element of wanting to show human frailty in content so no one suspects you of pushing slop.

    • Lemmywinks@lemmy.world
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      20 hours ago

      Nothing has recently changed about the way people use the word literally. The figurative use of literally has been used in famous works by the likes of Dickins, Twain and at least one of the Bronte sisters, and was first noted in an English dictionary in 1769 - people have literally been using it that way for at least 250 years.

      • DJKJuicy@sh.itjust.works
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        17 hours ago

        Merriam Webster updated the definition of literally to include the “informal” figurative definition in 2013.

        Now I use “objectively” because literally doesn’t literally mean literally in the dictionary.

      • FriendOfDeSoto@startrek.website
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        17 hours ago

        It is a bugbear for some, irregardless of when the first example was documented. Loose/lose has the potential to be such an annoyance. For some people.

        The word “new” can carry a connotation of “recent” but it more literally implies “the latest version.” For all intensive purposes, I did not mean to imply the controversy about the metaphorical use of “literally” was a recent development.

        • Lemmywinks@lemmy.world
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          16 hours ago

          Fair enough. My comment wasn’t aimed so much at you, I just like pointing out that the use of literally as an intensifier has a long and prestigious history.

          Also, really sorry to do this to you, but it’s “all intents and purposes”, not “intensive purposes”.

          • watson@sopuli.xyz
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            12 hours ago

            Also, irregardless isn’t a word if we’re being hardcore grammar Nazis here…

      • Onomatopoeia@lemmy.cafe
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        19 hours ago

        It’s changed massively in recent decades.

        Just because it had been used occasionally in the past is irrelevant (notably in metaphors or hyperbole). If anything, those literary uses strengthen the denotaton of the word.

        1530s, “in a literal sense, according to the exact meaning of the word or words used,” from literal + -ly

        The dictionary (OED) is built around common usage and clearly shows common usage for a long time.

        Just because illiterate Kardashians use it incorrectly doesn’t mean the rest of us should.

        • Lemmywinks@lemmy.world
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          19 hours ago

          You are wrong.

          Getting upset at people using literally in a figurative manner is popular these days, but it isn’t based on an actual change in usage. There are actually dozens of other words used euphemistically as intensifiers in the same way (‘totally’, ‘absolutely’, ‘fantastic’, ‘amazing’), but no one seems to mind for some reason.

  • Secret_Music@piefed.blahaj.zone
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    19 hours ago

    I’ve been following this English teacher on Instagram, who has had every attempt at getting kids to read thwarted by the school admins, who don’t want anything ‘woke’ or ‘political’ or too challenging in any way. Which left this teacher with an empty library by the time the admin was done.

    So it’s not the kids’ fault, it’s not social media’s fault, it’s not even the teacher’s fault. It’s pearl clutching, conservative, anti ‘woke’, horse dewormer enjoying, piss drinkers that want these kids to stay stupid and unquestioning, and to have the reading ability of 5th graders.

    I guess that if you put a bunch of religious fruitcakes that think science and education are woke devil magic in charge of things, you’re going to end up with poorly educated children. Who would’ve thought?

    • vector42@lemmy.world
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      16 hours ago

      Come on, it’s a little social media’s fault, too. They also benefit from these kids staying stupid and unquestioning. I agree with everything else you said, though.

  • usualsuspect191@lemmy.ca
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    15 hours ago

    A similar one I see quite often is “and” when it should be “an”. Not sure if it’s an auto-complete thing or they genuinely don’t know the difference, maybe due to their accent/dialect. Either way it’s like getting tripped while walking when stumbling over it in a sentence.

    • Lemmywinks@lemmy.world
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      3 hours ago

      The then/than problem is also getting out of hand these days. Again, not sure if it’s an auto-correct thing or not, but either way it pisses me off much more than it probably should.

  • FlashMobOfOne@lemmy.world
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    19 hours ago

    I loosed it by losing 150 pounds. It’s a biological bummer that one can literally deflate themselves and things don’t re-tighten.

    • village604@adultswim.fan
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      19 hours ago

      The bigger bummer is your fat cells don’t actually go away. They just shrink, so it’s easy to get fat again.

      • FlashMobOfOne@lemmy.world
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        15 hours ago

        I dropped from a 52 to a 38. I’ve since gained 60 of those pounds back, but a lot of it’s muscle.

        I kept the fat guy jeans to remind myself of where I started. Body dysmorphia’s a huge issue.

  • Chiahna@piefed.blahaj.zone
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    21 hours ago

    I was actually corrected on this not too long ago, and I am happy to report that I now remember the correct spelling!