Yes yes, language changes over time. I’ve heard that mantra for decades and I know it. That doesn’t mean there aren’t language changes that aren’t grating when they become fashionable (and hopefully temporary).
For me, “morals” being used as a crude catch-all application of “morality,” “ethics,” “integrity” or related concepts bothers me. Sentence example: “Maybe if society had morals there wouldn’t be so many minorities in prison.”
An even more annoying otherwise-fluent-speaker modification I see is when “conscious” is used to mean “consciousness” and “conscience” interchangeably. Sentence example: “Single mothers on welfare that steal baby formula have no conscious.” It sounds like they’re saying the shoplifter is not mentally aware of their own actions, not that they’re lacking sufficient “morals” to let their baby starve for the sake of Rules-Based Order™.
There’s others, but those two come up enough recently, with sufficient newness, for me to bring them up here. Some old classic language quirks are so established and entrenched that even though I hate them, bringing them up would likely invite some hatemail and maybe some mystery alt accounts also sending hatemail after that. You know, because they “could care less(sic)” about what I think.
There’s the saying about how if someone mispronounces a word, it likely means they learned it by reading.
So I try not to get too uptight about this stuff. I remember when I first read ‘clandestine’ and my brain just assigned it ‘candle-stine’ as the pronunciation. And then there’s just tons of accepted variations on some words as well.
But ya, I think FF7 contributed significantly to ‘run the gambit’ becoming so common in use.
That’s me! Read way more than I talked and so sounded very strange trying to say the new words I learned
I admit I find “Rickyisms” funny. They get two birds stoned at once, though I doubt Ricky learned them from reading.
I know what the fuck a jah-lap-a-no is.
Let’s be friends with the Benedicts.
“Shit clock’s ticking, UlyssesT. We’re watching you. Like a shithawk.”
