Less Than Three, the Importance of Studying Language
Working at a homecare company after college, I often prided myself on writing “professional” e-mails. I always included a greeting, punctuated, used clear language, and closed with a “sincerely.” My manager often praised these e-mails for their clarity, and I proudly responded “I was an English major.” After about two years we hired another employee, she was younger than I was, and a new college graduate with a finance degree. I noticed she used slang words in conversation, and an informal dialect. One afternoon, she sent a group e-mail, “Happy Friday!! Dont forget your timesheet <3 a="" above="" and="" answered="" as="" asked="" both="" called="" can="" changes="" co-worker="" co-workers="" confusion="" day.="" does="" e-mail.="" e-mail="" evolving="" example="" explained="" fluid="" good="" had="" hat="" he="" heart.="" his="" i="" important="" in="" into="" is="" it="" knew="" language="" laugh="" lead="" less="" looked="" manager="" me="" mean="" misunderstanding.="" my="" nothing="" o:p="" of="" office="" on="" one="" or="" personal="" professional="" puzzled="" read="" say="" setting.="" simply="" something="" still="" study="" text-speak="" than="" that="" the="" thought="" three="" to="" trying="" two="" was="" we="" went="" what="" with="">
Language change is inevitable, from text-speak to professional e-mail, technology is currently acting as a catalyst for our most recent modifications. This change is so significant that books have been published, for example linguist Gretchen McCulloch’s 2019 book “Because Internet: Understanding the New Rules of Language” and “LOL: Losing our Language” published in 2016 and written by Jack Brennan. Both authors discuss the word “LOL.” Regardless of the opinions of McCulloch and Brennan, the word is widely used and accepted. It is an example of alphabetism explained by Curzan & Adams 2012 as “when a word is formed from the initials of a phrase and the word is pronounced as the resulting sequence of letters” (112). In text messages, e-mails and facebook posts “LOL” is understood to translate to laughing out loud, but it has evolved past its literal or denotative meaning. It has become a “filler” word, as McCulloch explains in her July 31st NPR interview “there's no literal meaning left to LOL at all. ... It's a filler that specifically indicates that there's some sort of double meaning to be found.” As language evolves the meaning of words change. Without an understanding of linguistics, this change could lead to confusion in conversation and written communication. An e-mail sent to a co-worker stating “I hate today lol” utilizes the connotative meaning, applying the older interpretation “I hate today laughing out loud” is confusing and not applicable to the sentence.
Understanding the history of language, or the study of philology as a part of linguistics helps writers, editors, teachers, and readers to appreciate and recognize authenticity in film, and/or literature. Many popular film and written publications have utilized linguistics. For example, the well-received television series Game of Thrones employed a linguist to expand the Dothraki language, as David Salo explains in his 2020 Fantasy Magazine article “Dothraki was fleshed out by David Peterson . . . Dothraki itself is still a work in progress; the available corpus is still quite small, with fewer than 500 words known so far, but it is to be expected that, as the series unfolds, it will become more complex and detailed.” Without Peterson the Dothraki would have less depth. Some writers, are philologists. J.R.R. Tolkein’s trilogy The Lord of The Rings published in 1945 owes some of its success to the language development. Tolkien created Elvish and Old Speak based on his study of language. This created a sense of authenticity and his works are still admired today.
The importance of linguistics applies to many mediums, not only literature, film, and e-mail. Linguistic change is evident in television commercials, Curzan and Adams give the example of Kia’s 2007 minivan commercial which “took a morphological shortcut very typical of slang” (458). Advertisements needs to excite and intrigue their audiences, one way of achieving the goal is through new words or even new syntax. English has evolved from a language focused on the inflectional ending or words to one that focuses on grammar for structure and meaning. Youth today utilize functional shifting which is explained as “a word employed in one lexical category moves into another category” (Curzan & Adams 115.) One might say “he ghosted me” or ‘I’ll text you.” The words “ghost” and “text” are nouns acting as verbs.
Language is evolving and we need to keep up in our professional and personal lives. Although it was harmless, the misunderstanding of less than three to mean a heart could have been detrimental. If symptom screening a patient virtually as many physicians are required to due to the current pandemic, consider a text interaction; “on a scale of 1 to 10 how much pain are you experiencing.” “My pain is a 4 now, thanks <3 4="" a="" advances="" and="" because="" become="" changing="" confused="" could="" cultural="" discontinuation="" doctor="" ever="" from="" important="" is="" it="" language.="" lead="" may="" medication="" more="" nbsp="" o:p="" of="" one.="" or="" our="" pain="" patient="" soon.="" study="" technological="" than="" the="" their="" thinking="" this="" to="" too="" two="">
Cornish, Audie. “Our Language Is Evolving, 'Because Internet'.” NPR, NPR, 31 July 2019, www.npr.org/2019/07/31/747020219/our-language-is-evolving-because-internet.
Curzan, Anne, and Michael Adams. How English Works: a Linguistic Introduction. Longman, 2012.
Salo, David. “The Language of Fantasy by David Salo: Fantasy Magazine.” The Language of Fantasy , Fantasy Magazine , www.fantasy-magazine.com/new/new-nonfiction/the-language-of-fantasy/.
