This website was set up to accompany my newsletter on how English is evolving and how it is spoken around the world. I like making lists. I like categorising the things I come across. It’s just how I tick. This website is a side project, and I usually only come to it once a month,… Continue reading About this website
Alphabetical list of all the slang I’ve discussed in my newsletter
Gen Z slang is here to stay. Here’s a list I know will slay. 💀 (skull emoji): this emoji has replaced 😂 as the acceptable way to indicate laughter. “I laughed so hard I died”. (In use since the early 2020s according to KnowYourMeme) ● 4+4: very good. Derived from the fact that 4+4=eight, which… Continue reading Alphabetical list of all the slang I’ve discussed in my newsletter
All the “old British people doing Gen Z slang” TikTok videos in one place
You’ve probably already heard of the viral TikTok trend where older staff members “let their Gen Z coworkers (or children) write their marketing scripts”. The results are as hilarious as you’d imagine, with older British people using Gen Z slang in the most deadpan, funny way possible. We don’t know who did it first. According… Continue reading All the “old British people doing Gen Z slang” TikTok videos in one place
What does “a dumpy” mean in 2024?
This Instagram post threw me for a loop, because what is a “dumpy”? I looked at the comments, assuming someone else would be asking, too, but doing so made me feel very old, as everyone seemed to know exactly what was meant. Dictionary entries give definitions for the adjective “dumpy”, Merriam Webster for example gives… Continue reading What does “a dumpy” mean in 2024?
What does “75 cozy” mean?
Rebecca Jennings wrote a column for Vox about all the new terms that are being coined on TikTok for the clicks. She even gave the phenomenon a name: trendbait. It was a great piece and I featured it in my newsletter. One annoying thing, though: one of her examples was a term that I had… Continue reading What does “75 cozy” mean?
Why do people sometimes write “wen” instead of “when”?
In the most recent episode of podcast Because Language, presenter and linguist Daniel Midgley tells us about some interesting Internet English he has observed. It is about the placement of the word “when”, sometimes spelled as “wen”. Here are some examples: (I apologise for all the examples being on Reddit, Daniel Midgley did name some… Continue reading Why do people sometimes write “wen” instead of “when”?
Does anybody actually use tone indicators?
What are tone indicators? Tone indicators or tone tags are slash-letter combinations that you add to the end of a remark to let people know how you meant it. Like this: I hate teachers /j /j means “joking” You can find whole lists of them online, but it is important to note that most of… Continue reading Does anybody actually use tone indicators?
AI ghost words: a list
An AI ghost word is a nonsense word that has been given a nonsense definition by AI. In practice, we see that the same ghost words are given different definitions on different junk-AI websites. Here are a few examples. lrtsjerk 2460 results on Google (January 2024) This was the first AI ghost word I encountered.… Continue reading AI ghost words: a list
lrtsjerk & AI ghost words, part 2
I’ve had a few responses to my blog post from 30 January 2024 about AI generated articles making up definitions for nonsense words. For the term “lrtsjerk”, for example, I found 2460 articles; a few definitions were “a group of online jerks”, “a leading technology solution”, “an out-of-the-box way of thinking”, “a magical land”, “a… Continue reading lrtsjerk & AI ghost words, part 2
lrtsjerk: a ghost word that scares me
For my newsletter on English language change, I monitor the web using good old Google Alerts. I’ve set up search queries such as “English linguistics” and “Gen Z slang”, and once a week Google sends me all the new results that have been put on the web with those keywords. In the past few months,… Continue reading lrtsjerk: a ghost word that scares me
Enregisterment explained
Today, fellow English teacher, blogger, and podcaster Dan Clayton posted this on BlueSky: In a follow-up post, he clarified that the enregisterment in this xtweet was the “like roadmen” part. I had never heard of the term “enregisterment” so I googled “enregisterment meaning” and “enregisterment linguistics”. I found lots of very dense, academic papers and… Continue reading Enregisterment explained