Yes yes, language changes over time. I’ve heard that mantra for decades and I know it. That doesn’t mean there aren’t language changes that aren’t grating when they become fashionable (and hopefully temporary).

For me, “morals” being used as a crude catch-all application of “morality,” “ethics,” “integrity” or related concepts bothers me. Sentence example: “Maybe if society had morals there wouldn’t be so many minorities in prison.” lmayo us-foreign-policy

An even more annoying otherwise-fluent-speaker modification I see is when “conscious” is used to mean “consciousness” and “conscience” interchangeably. Sentence example: “Single mothers on welfare that steal baby formula have no conscious.” It sounds like they’re saying the shoplifter is not mentally aware of their own actions, not that they’re lacking sufficient “morals” to let their baby starve for the sake of Rules-Based Order™.

There’s others, but those two come up enough recently, with sufficient newness, for me to bring them up here. Some old classic language quirks are so established and entrenched that even though I hate them, bringing them up would likely invite some hatemail and maybe some mystery alt accounts also sending hatemail after that. You know, because they “could care less(sic)” about what I think. janet-wink

  • keepcarrot [she/her]@hexbear.netEnglish
    10·
    1 year ago

    The reframing of “politics” to whatever people think it means. My cliffnotes of “politics” is “engaging with social relations through the lens of power”, not “stuff people in parliament do” or "minority emancipation " or whatever other extremely reductive definition people use.

    I keep class signifiers out of conversation, but things like “eckspecially” or “nucular” annoy me. But that’s my dad’s elitist elocution coming through.

    X-of instead of X-have.

    "Well actually ", “Consider” and other codewords that suggest I am about to receive a take of breathtaking innanity and self-importance