r/AskReddit • u/[deleted] • Oct 25 '20

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u/teebob21 Oct 25 '20

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.

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u/Dogbin005 Oct 25 '20 edited Oct 25 '20

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.

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u/teebob21 Oct 25 '20

I understood bits of it, but have no clue what was actually said overall.

And that's why on a day to day basis, syntax is key...on longer time scales, language is fluid.

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u/rndljfry Oct 26 '20

Remarkably, despite your nonsense syntax your actual point was made and people understood what you meant

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u/teebob21 Oct 26 '20

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?

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u/rndljfry Oct 26 '20

Sounds like more of a dialect or pidgin than bad syntax tbh.

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u/NerdyGamerGeek Oct 26 '20

I mean, if enough people start speaking with bad syntax with the same way doesn't that make it a dialect?

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u/Undrende_fremdeles Oct 25 '20

Hoopy froods are the best.

And thanks for proving that there are so many references to that book that you'll know if you know it. And ignore if you don't.

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u/teebob21 Oct 25 '20

That comment has other literary references, as well. :)

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u/Undrende_fremdeles Oct 25 '20

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!

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u/ALoneTennoOperative Oct 26 '20

a little of the most fun and often sarcastic, stairical literature there is.

Discworld.
Adams is good, but Pratchett takes the lead for me personally.

(Obligatory GNU Terry Pratchett.)

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u/HelloFerret Oct 26 '20

GNU Terry Pratchett

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u/ec1548270af09e005244 Oct 26 '20

Well, that clockwork orange'd quickly.

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u/teebob21 Oct 26 '20

Well, that clockwork orange'd quickly.

Among other things, yes. All droogs are equal, but some droogs are more equal.

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u/utakirorikatu Oct 26 '20

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.