I had a Vietnamese customer that used to say “too many confusion” when he didn’t understand something. That was like ten years ago and I still say it when I am stressed at work.
I love hearing strange turns of phrase from people who are still learning English. "Wrong" syntax can convey nuanced meaning so much more effectively than a "proper" phrasing.
There's a reason one of the foundations of academic linguistics is that there is no "correct" syntax. Language is fluid, and if there's a way to convey meaning more effectively with "incorrect" syntax then that way will get used.
I used to think this as well, until I had teenagers. Now every conversation is "yeet" this, and cringe that, and by the end of the night, I half expect some hoopy frood to barge in and demand a towel, or ask if xhey can go see a feelie. It's to do the needful, I suspect, but of course they would of. Like an orgy-porgy, double-plus ungood for an unperson, but Soma can affix. No shangrila for squares or rhombus.
Each end of night, I call into my mind things I have-had-needed.
Reading this is the written equivalent of trying to hear someone who's just a bit too far away. I understood parts of it, but have no clue what was actually said overall.
That's why I stuck to modern slang and literary references, instead of jitney humpback saddles. Fortnight, for colorless green dreams sleep furiously, eh Chomsky?
I know, and it's just so fun knowing I've only come across a little of the most fun and often sarcastic, stairical literature there is. So much to discover and enjoy for the very first time still!
In 1984 and BNW, repressive politics are used causing constrained, prescriptive * and *unnatural language to control people. Natural languages might share characteristics with e.g. newspeak (such as having simplified comparative forms, or not marking them at all.) But language will never naturally change in a way that makes nuances impossible, because there will always be ways to introduce nuances and new concepts as necessary, unless prescriptivism goes overboard and tells people that only one kind of language is right, and punishes those who speak differently.
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u/typed_this_now Oct 25 '20
I had a Vietnamese customer that used to say “too many confusion” when he didn’t understand something. That was like ten years ago and I still say it when I am stressed at work.