Apparently Sodapop Curtis said "gnarly," and Chris Traeger said "literally." Every decade I have a favorite phrase I can't stop with.
Hit records create slang, and if you create slang, you get into a broader conversation level.
I don't like catchphrases either. A current one would be, "Bye, Felicia." It's used so much that we don't even know the origin anymore.
I would bet that the average teenager in this country has not used the word 'wisdom' in the past year
Euphemisms, like fashions, have their day and pass, perhaps to return at another time. Like the guests at a masquerade ball, they enjoy social approval only so long as they retain the capacity for deception.
I'm kind of over people using the word 'bae'. Let's get rid of that.
There's a fashion abroad generally to speak the language as badly as possible. I'm of a mind to start a society for the reinstatement of the letter 't' and the banishment of the glottal stop.
Language is more fashion than science, and matters of usage, spelling and pronunciation tend to wander around like hemlines.
I am living with a rising generation which talks like people coming out of ether.
In America, we don't, in daily discourse, use the words 'capitalism' or 'socialism.' They've been kind of nonexistent words, I would say, amongst the general public.
Youthquake' wasn't an entirely predictable choice for Oxford's Word of 2017. It hasn't been on the lips of an entire nation, nor is it new. But it amply fulfilled the criteria Oxford requires for selection.
