From Newsgroup: sci.lang


interesting, longish, some highlights

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/09/crosswords/why-kids-are-starting-to-sound-like-their-grandparents.html

https://archive.ph/Ysyaj

Language is evolving faster than ever. Slang terms
may emerge, dominate the discourse and die out
before they can even be explained to the uninitiated.
For the most part, these new terms are neologisms:
crash out, vibecoding, fridge cigarette. But every
now and then, our coinage superhighway spits out
something that sounds all too familiar: Yap.
Skedaddle. Diabolical. Though the heyday for these
words may have been over a century ago, theyrCOre used
enough in the present day to merit consideration as
words of the year.
...
For Ms. Hughes, this kind of comeback isnrCOt all that
surprising. She suggested that old terms often return
subconsciously amid a sort of inventory-taking
whenever a significant milestone arrives rCo like the
turn of a decade or the anniversary of a cultural
event. rCLItrCOs just a reason to go back through the old
photos of the language, and being like, Oh yeah, I
remember, that was pretty fun,rCY she said.
...
This doesnrCOt mean that our vocabulary is cyclical; a
vast majority of terms that fall out of use stay that
way, or are quaintly memorialized in coffee-table
reference books, such as rCLThe Word Museum.rCY Unless
somebody decides that it would be cooler to complain
of being rCLmawmseyrCY than being rCLhungover,rCY werCOre
unlikely to hear them again.

According to Dr. Kirby Conrod, a sociolinguist who
teaches at Swarthmore, the chief factor in speaking
words back into existence is the person doing the
speaking.

rCLLanguage change is a team sport,rCY said Dr. Conrod,
explaining that usage ripples outward from a central
social group. rCLYou cannot get it going by yourself.rCY
The spread of a new word, or the rebirth of an old
one, begins when a given group of cool kids starts
using it. The sociolinguist William Labov referred to
this group of early users as the linguistic
avant-garde, i.e., the people who will later say that
they were using a new word rCLbefore it was cool.rCY Those
kids then take the word into their respective social
networks, made up of equally cool kids. Those networks
start using it. From there, usage catches on among the
older and less cool.
...
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From Newsgroup: sci.lang


Tilde <invalide@invalid.invalid> posted:

interesting, longish, some highlights

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/09/crosswords/why-kids-are-starting-to-sound-like-their-grandparents.html

https://archive.ph/Ysyaj

Language is evolving faster than ever. Slang terms
may emerge, dominate the discourse and die out
before they can even be explained to the uninitiated.
For the most part, these new terms are neologisms:
crash out, vibecoding, fridge cigarette. But every
now and then, our coinage superhighway spits out
something that sounds all too familiar: Yap.
Skedaddle. Diabolical. Though the heyday for these
words may have been over a century ago, theyrCOre used
enough in the present day to merit consideration as
words of the year.
...
For Ms. Hughes, this kind of comeback isnrCOt all that
surprising. She suggested that old terms often return
subconsciously amid a sort of inventory-taking
whenever a significant milestone arrives rCo like the
turn of a decade or the anniversary of a cultural
event. rCLItrCOs just a reason to go back through the old
photos of the language, and being like, Oh yeah, I
remember, that was pretty fun,rCY she said.
...
This doesnrCOt mean that our vocabulary is cyclical; a
vast majority of terms that fall out of use stay that
way, or are quaintly memorialized in coffee-table
reference books, such as rCLThe Word Museum.rCY Unless
somebody decides that it would be cooler to complain
of being rCLmawmseyrCY than being rCLhungover,rCY werCOre
unlikely to hear them again.

According to Dr. Kirby Conrod, a sociolinguist who
teaches at Swarthmore, the chief factor in speaking
words back into existence is the person doing the
speaking.

rCLLanguage change is a team sport,rCY said Dr. Conrod,
explaining that usage ripples outward from a central
social group. rCLYou cannot get it going by yourself.rCY
The spread of a new word, or the rebirth of an old
one, begins when a given group of cool kids starts
using it. The sociolinguist William Labov referred to
this group of early users as the linguistic
avant-garde, i.e., the people who will later say that
they were using a new word rCLbefore it was cool.rCY Those
kids then take the word into their respective social
networks, made up of equally cool kids. Those networks
start using it. From there, usage catches on among the
older and less cool.
...

This article is a bit boring?

Yap means to jabber, right?

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