DEBASING THE CURRENCY OF LANGUAGE

@Lustig Andrei,

Joe Nation wrote:

PS: Don't you love the word "nowadays"?

Lustig Andrei wrote:

Oscar Wilde used that word back in the late 19th century.
More than once, too. Nuttin' rawng with it.

I 've never adopted that usage.
I 'd more likely say: "these days" or: "we now do thus & so";
maybe: "in modern times. . . . "

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@roger,

roger wrote:

Over used for sure, but maybe not debased. Maybe. . . .

An example does not come to mind at the moment,
but I 've seen "insensitive" used in strange new ways
that don 't relate well to what I 've understood it to mean.

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@Setanta,

Like “importantly”: “firstly,” “secondly.” So why not “hundredthly"

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@JTT,

JTT I’m aware that the “newer” meanings eventually get into the word books but I nonetheless deplore the practice as a dumbing down

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@Setanta,

What about phrases?

New neighbor that doesn't know my name: How are you?

Foofie: Fine!

(Now what if I am not fine? Does this literal stranger want to know that? I suspect the literal stranger, or marginal acquaintance, thinks that he/she is showing proper etiquette. That's right, put me on the spot, so I have to think again that this could be one of my lousy days. I put these people on the left side of my imaginary bellcurve that I keep for everyone I meet.)

P.S. Should the thought even be broached that my mood on any day may really be no one's business? Even if I know them by name and for years.

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@Setanta,

Slightly OT but speaking of debasing I often find what I consider omissions in Thesaurus.com, yet they don’t provide a suggestion box

http://able2know.org/topic/191138-1

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@Foofie,

That's a good point and an aspect i hadn't considered. I suspect that people expect to hear "fine," and were one to habitually answer the question honestly, people would stop asking.

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@Foofie,

Foofie wrote:

New neighbor that doesn't know my name: How are you?

Ya'll have an nice day there, Foofie, ya hear.

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@JTT,

Words are surreal and phantasmagorical.

And those are words to live by.

1 Reply

@parados,

Quote:

surreal and phantasmagorical.

Abstract, recondite, transcendental

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Arcane

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@Setanta,

Good one Set, don’t know how I missed it

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You are quite sibylline today, cabalistic even...

Any vaticination about the next utterance?

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@Strauss,

I first read that as "vaccination against the next utterance".

What on earth was I thinking?

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@Setanta,

I say it all the time. It's a great opener to strangers to start a conversation. I met a man in the neighbourhood that had recently suffered a stroke and his wife had just died. He most definitely didn't answer - fine. I see him a couple times a week now as I'm out walking the hound and we have little chats.
I guess it all depends on the sincerity and the intent. I like meeting new people and if I didn't, I would not care to ask in the first place.

1 Reply

@Foofie,

Foofie wrote:

What about phrases?

New neighbor that doesn't know my name: How are you?

Foofie: Fine!

(Now what if I am not fine? Does this literal stranger want to know that? I suspect the literal stranger, or marginal acquaintance, thinks that he/she is showing proper etiquette. That's right, put me on the spot, so I have to think again that this could be one of my lousy days. I put these people on the left side of my imaginary bellcurve that I keep for everyone I meet.)

P.S. Should the thought even be broached that my mood on any day may really be no one's business?
Even if I know them by name and for years.

I think it was MGM movie mogul Louis B. Mayer
who said:
" the definition of a bore
is someone who, when u ask him how he IS,
he TELLS u."

David

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@Ceili,

Ceili wrote:

I say it all the time. It's a great opener to strangers to start a conversation. I met a man in the neighbourhood that had recently suffered a stroke and his wife had just died. He most definitely didn't answer - fine. I see him a couple times a week now as I'm out walking the hound and we have little chats.
I guess it all depends on the sincerity and the intent. I like meeting new people and if I didn't, I would not care to ask in the first place.

Fine. Have a pleasant day. [Foofie believes that small talk is a lost art. Dickens novels have helped him realize that he should have been born in Victorian England.]

1 Reply

@Foofie,

Oh balderdash.....I and my friends do a great line in small talk.....not Victorian small talk, but small nonetheless.

1 Reply

@Setanta,

Setanta wrote:

That's a good point and an aspect i hadn't considered. I suspect that people expect to hear "fine," and were one to habitually answer the question honestly, people would stop asking.

I've heard the Germans will tell you how they really are....but I did not find that to be the case in my interactions in Berlin. However, it may, perhaps, be confined to the provinces or to people one knows well?

The funniest example of the formal and meaningless how are you interaction is when one goes to the doctor.

I always answer good, thank you and then, of course, go on to describe the ailment du jour.

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There's an expression they use here in Hawaii all the time instead of "How areyou?" or "What's up?" or any of those others you hear on the mainland. The expression is "How'zit?" Hear it daily. It's supposedly short for "How's it going?" It's so typically Hawiian I find myself using it all the time now just to fit in.

1 Reply

DEBASING THE CURRENCY OF LANGUAGE

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