this post was submitted on 24 Feb 2025
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I get the feeling people can almost use words any way they want now and somehow it's recognizable because of general shared culture.
They always did, you're just exposed to it more now. Because Internet.
Yes, that's how language works, but in the last 15 of 20 years I've noticed a really distinct upsurge in the amount of slang being invented. A lot of terms are abbreviations made up to reduce thumb keystrokes, as opposed to traditional slang that gets adopted because it sounds catchy. That's a very new trend created by cellphone use.
I think also because POC and women are all online too now. 15+ years ago it was probably 90% white men.
No doubt more POC and women are online now, but why would slang grow faster because of this?
Definitions come from the way people use words, not the other way around. This has been the case for a long time, that's how Shakespeare got away with inventing so many words. He just used em and people were like "yeah that's alright, those collections of sounds can definitely describe this feeling/thing/whatever"
Honestly, I love it. English is such a twisted, fucked up language and it's like we're collectively acknowledging it and using it to our advantage.
English is the only language that acknowledges the fact that I'm a divine being of chaos at the infinite centre of creation, which is the main thing holding back my study of French