Words, phrases, and being surplus to requirements...
Bryce Main
Multi-genre author, mostly Crime fiction. Scottish. Been writing longer than I’ve been wearing big boy’s trousers.
It’s the duty of language to evolve.
Some words fall out of use slowly. Others open the door gently and take a sneaky peek into the changing room of life.
Some introduce themselves politely and find a convenient spot to park their arses before joining in the dance.
Others barge in, kicking and screaming, and grab the nearest chair (whether it’s already occupied or not), and proceed to get blind drunk.
The English language, wherever it’s used (and abused) has always been like that.
It’s a bastard tongue…and its role in life is to undergo constant metamorphosis.
I don’t know for sure, but I suspect other languages do the same sort of thing.
This can be endlessly fascinating for people who love words. People who look upon words and phrases, axioms or aphorisms, as tools of their trade.
I’m speaking, of course, of writers. Scribes. Essayists. Novelists. Pen-pushers. Copywriters. Journalists…and the like.
Whether these tools are as common as muck…or as rare as a white rhino…language is as necessary for life as breathing.
So, I’m always overcome with a certain sadness whenever I learn that some words and phrases are about to get the chop and disappear from the dictionary like the last of a rare species disappears from the animal kingdom.
Never to be seen in ink or living flesh again.
I learned this morning that, according to a recent survey of 2,000 adults, a whole host of phrases would soon be consigned to the bin as surplus to requirements.
Like: know your onions…the knackers yard…a fly in the ointment…keen as mustard…knickers in a twist…dead as a doornail…flogging a dead horse…toe the line…fell off the back of a lorry…the list goes on and on.
I suppose the prerequisite for joining that list has something to do with age and literaacy.
And whether life, in all its wonderous imaginations, has tapped you on the shoulder yet.
Personally, I think that language is a damned sight more than just the joining up of letters and words, sentences and paragraphs.
Language, whether written or spoken, is what puts us on the map.
It’s what gets us an invitation to the party.
领英推荐
And just because not enough people use some words enough, doesn’t mean they don’t deserve to be included on the pages of the great dictionary of life.
They’re not dead.
They haven’t ceased to be.
They’re not ex-words and phrases.
They’re just resting…
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The above is an extract from my as yet unpublished (and mostly unwritten) book Ad Interruptus.
Like its sisters Ad Lib, and Ad Infinitum (NOW AVAILABLE), it's about creativity, advertising, life, and lots of stuff in between.
You'll find Ad Infinitum, Ad Lib, and Ad Hoc on Amazon, along with my other books, Love & Coffee and Heaven Help Us. In print and ebook. Waiting for you.
And the wonderful thing about all three Ad books is… it doesn’t matter where you finish any chapter or episode.
Because it will always be pretty damned close to where you started it…
Ad Infinitum: https://amzn.to/3pof7Uq
Ad Lib: https://amzn.to/2kd4LKf.
Ad Hoc: https://amzn.to/2Nx8GL8
Love & Coffee: https://amzn.to/28IWaHq
Heaven Help Us: https://amzn.to/2nkQ1Jk
Grab a coffee, grab a chair, and grab a sneaky peek.
Then grab a copy...
Senior Creative
3 年I still use all the phrases you listed! But then I’m probably a candidate for the knackers yard myself. I struggle more with the constant misuse of their, there, they’re and the like. But again that’s just evidence of our language constantly changing. (Otherwise I guess we’d all still be saying forsooth and egads.)??
Manager Graphics Design and Production
3 年I love this morning's post. It reminds me, I just recently came across an article from a native Guyanese who has put together a Guyanese dictionary on colloquial slangs. Since Guyana is an english speaking country you can just imagine how funny and meaningful some of them are.
I find the words.
3 年You win some, you lose some words x
Photographer & Producer for marketing and communication.
3 年Love this, I must admit that I still use many phrases that completely fly over many a young head, maybe I need to rest?