Ministry Of Silly Links

(Howard) "Dean" and "Sam" (Alito) duet, with animation. Just plain goofy.

Teenaged girls are the engine of the evolution of the English language:

THE teenage girl is the most powerful influence on the evolution of the English language around the world.

...

"Valley Girl has gone beyond a fad and is now rooted in different forms of English around the world," Ms Tagliamonte said. "Girls are the single most powerful force in the English language today." The research was among work discussed at the annual meeting of the American Dialect Society in New Mexico over the weekend.

...

"Females are very quick to pick up on any aspect of fashion, whether it is clothing or speech, that shows off status. Men are less quick to do so," he said.

True dat. Men don't like buying into hip lingo, except when done ironically. We just don't like gettin' jiggy with English. It's because we're sexually repressed, it turns out:

Barry Spurr, senior lecturer in English at the University of Sydney, said social pressures meant Australian men in particular were more reluctant to display their language abilities.

"They are afraid to be seen expressing thought because they are sexually insecure," Dr Spurr said. "They want to be seen to be real men and the standard for real men wouldn't be seen to express a thought.

"The big problem in Australia is getting young men to talk at all. Girls are much more orally adventurous."

Ahem.

And it's not a new phenomenon:

In addition, women seeking prestige pick up fashionable new words faster than men. Experts believe this has been going on for centuries. A Finnish study of 15th-century English court correspondence shows that aristocratic wives moved from archaic "ye" to "you" significantly earlier than their husbands.

Really? I think I'm moving back to "ye," then. I won't be henpecked into using these edgy, hip neologisms.

Thanks to the A-Man.

posted by Ace at 01:01 PM

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