Friday, June 5, 2009

Today's lexicon

Don't you just love the English language. What I love about it is that the English language is unlike the French language. The French language appears to be governed by a legion of ex-covert operatives on behalf of the Ministry of Culture. Only certain words are permitted to be added to the French lexicon so as to preserve the French culture. Other words sadly don't make it and are left to stand in the cold shadows of the Moulin Rouge in the 18eme arondissement.

The English language, or rather the American language, continues to add new terms each day. We seem to take all comers, really. These days especially as various social networking sites take off, I find myself creating verbs out of nouns and being understood. 

Do you twitter?
Have you tried to google him yet?
Will you friend me on facebook?

Of course, this is nothing new. We've been xeroxing rather than copying for ages, and everyone always asks for a kleenex and not a tissue. In America, we're just not as uptight about what we allow into our language I guess. By the way, if you want to keep up with the lingo these days, the NetLingo dictionary will keep you current. Try to pace yourself.

Punchlines
If I had to wager between office supply products on its sheer usefulness, I would say the stapler by far is the most often used. Unless of course you count the...
...discreet eavesdropping mini-microphone... which is frankly indispensable.


1 comment:

  1. Very true.. just yesterday we were talking about how we can change nouns into verbs by adding an "ed" or "ing" after them :)

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