Lexicon of an ever-changing language

Swati Rai

Language is a social construct and forever in a flux.  It is impacted by the socio-cultural changes around the speaker and also technological advances and its increasing influence on the conversational process. To say that the English language as we know it is no longer recognisable, wouldn’t be amiss. Internet slang, Text lingo and now, the raging pandemic, has influenced the lexicon of the English language too. No harm in brushing up on how and in what way have these changes impacted the language as we speak.

Nature of Change

Appropriation of the previously existing words, repurposing them to assign new meaning based on their online usage — such as ‘wall’, ‘tablet’, ‘stream’ is old news, yet relevant to know. Add to the ‘Catfish’, a term used to refer to an internet user who poses to be someone other than themselves online.  

The more usual changes have been in the coinage such as the ubiquitous ‘hashtag’, ‘I can’t even’, on fleek, et al.

The speed at which new words owing to the increased Internet usage of the language are being minted, is equalled by the words coined the same way earlier, are fast becoming redundant —  OMG, ‘LOL’, TXT’, ‘FOMO’ ‘TBT’, TXT, GR8 are there but if one uses these near redundant acronyms, the chance of being considered a ‘noob’ are higher.  

Add to this, the social media coinages from, Instagram (‘gram’ for Gen z), Tik Tok and Twitter, yes FB is on the wane of course, has led to a proliferation of SM lingo, that could well be seeping into the socially distanced water cooler chats the workplace.

‘Big yikes!’, when a simple yikes doesn’t really exclaim enough, or a ‘Simp- an overtly sappy person towards another to be liked!’ ‘Mutuals’ as we know , are people who follow each other

 Pandemic Lingo

While, words as ‘Coronacation’, ‘Morona’, ‘social-distancing’, ‘physical distancing’, circuit breaker’ or even ‘Long Covid’ are passe and so last year.

Amongst the words added by Merriam-Webster dictionary, a few do take note of pandemic inspired vocabulary. ‘Bubble’ as in the ‘Stadium bubble’ , the ‘hotel bubble’ it’s where sports teams stay isolated from the public during a series of scheduled games so they don’t pick up the virus.’ and words such as ‘Pod’, “a usually small group of people, such as family members, friends, co-workers or classmates, who regularly are together but with few or no others so they don’t catch COVID.’

The increased use of emoticons in ensuring, fast, convenient and more time saving ways of communicating may well have taken over our minds and smart phones.

At a time when AI is increasingly becoming more nuanced in customer engagement with attempts being made to continually broaden its range of accents, dialects,  and other linguistic expressions, it is really any longer a wonder that our communication language is also morphing into a ready to eat (read, consume) convenience. 

Code switching is of course not a novelty. An awareness of the changed texture of the language is important, though one may resort to code switching to suit the company’s mandate of formal or informal registers.

Naysayers will opine that such changes will sound the death knell for language; and purists will insist on the ‘proper’ usage of the language, little realising that the digital natives, and global nomads in a fast changing work world, will code switch as and when mandated. More harmful to their effective interaction skills would be the proverbial,  Ostrich in the sand, oblivious to the great churn the language is being going through, now that would ‘hit differently’ when a misunderstanding arises due to one’s wilful ignorance!