Traditional British English fading away

October 27, 2011 at 5:49 pm | Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a comment

It’s diabolical! Traditional British words are dying out – because text speak has become so popular, research has found.

Experts have found a significant decrease in the use of words which our parents and grandparents used to utter on an almost daily basis.

‘Balderdash’ and ‘shenanigans’ now sound ‘arcane’ because modern slang has ‘quashed’ them, according to a study.

And ‘rambunctious’, ‘verily’, ‘salutations’, ‘spiffing’, ‘betrothed’ and ‘bally’ have all followed ‘cripes’ in falling out of fashion.

But a quarter of British adults admit using text message abbreviations such as ‘lol’ (laughing out loud), ‘jel’ (jealous) and ‘soz’ (sorry) in verbal communication.

The survey of 2,000 adults found that almost three-quarters believe longer words have become outdated since text messages and social networking websites gained popularity.

TOP FORGOTTEN WORDS

1. Bally: A British word from 1885 which is a euphemism for bloody

2. Laggard: An 18th Century word to describe someone who lags behind or responds slowly

3. Felicitations: From the noun of action felicitate, you would use this word to express congratulations

4. Rambunctious: Boisterous or unruly, the word is believed to have originated in 1830

5. Verily: From Middle English, simply means true or in truth

6. Salutations: A welcome greeting

7. Betwixt: Originated before 950, and means neither the one nor the other

8. Lauded: From the Latin laudāre, to praise

9. Arcane: Known or understood by very few

10. Raconteur: A person skilled in telling stories,originated in the 19th Century, from the French verb, raconter, to tell

11. Cad: An ill-bred man, originates from 19 Century, derived from the word Caddie

12. Betrothed: The person to whom one is engaged

13. Cripes: Twentieth Century slang for an expression of surprise, euphemistic for ‘Christ!’

14. Malaise: A vague or unfocused feeling of mental uneasiness

15. Quash: To put down or suppress completely; quell

16. Swell: Originates before 900 from the Middle English verb swellen, meanings include the verb to inflate and an adjective which describes if something is excellent

17. Balderdash: From the 1590s it was originally a jumbled mix of liquors (milk and beer, beer and wine, etc.), before being transferred in 1670s to ‘senseless jumble of words’

18. Smite: To strike, deal a blow

19. Spiffing: From the word spiff, meaning well-dressed, means superb

20. Tomfoolery: Foolish behaviour

Half of those polled didn’t know what a ‘cad’ was and almost one in five weren’t familiar with the term ‘raconteur’, while three-quarters had never described something as ‘diabolical’.

JP Davidson, author of Planet Word, which tells the story of our evolving language, said: ‘There are some great descriptive words that are being lost and these words would make our everyday language much more colourful and fun if we were to use them.’

Just nine per cent use the word ‘bogus’, ten per cent have used ‘fiddlesticks’ and only three quarters have used ‘oopsy-daisy’.

Only half have used the word ‘knackered’ and three quarters have never used ‘diabolical’. Three quarters don’t use ‘cheerio’ and a fifth say they don’t know what ‘myriad’ means.

Most people admitted they often come across words they don’t know the meaning of, with teenagers and those in their twenties finding this happening more frequently than any other age group.

More here

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