>> Of course, those who make this assumption will probably thumb their nose at how 'unsophisticated' these new words are. > For what it's worth I find language

>> Of course, those who make this assumption will probably thumb their nose at how 'unsophisticated' these new words are. > For what it's worth I find language much more fun when I can stretch it to its (or rather my) fullest, appreciating the history and subtlety of words and phrases I employ, rather than wishing for language to be pedestrian and exclusively utilitarian. Thanks for confirming my suspicion. You're dismissing the ever-evolving lexicon as 'pedestrian' and 'utilitarian'? I mean, really? "Pedestrian": the cup final was a pedestrian affair: dull, plodding, boring, tedious, monotonous, uneventful, unremarkable, tiresome, wearisome, uninspired, uncreative, unimaginative, unexciting, uninteresting, lifeless, dry; unvarying, unvaried, repetitive, repetitious, routine, commonplace, average, workaday; ordinary, everyday, unoriginal, derivative, mediocre, run-of-the-mill, flat, prosaic, matter-of-fact, turgid, stodgy, mundane, humdrum; informal OK, so-so, bog-standard, vanilla, plain vanilla, nothing to write home about, not so hot, not up to much How does that describe the vibrant new words used all around us? "Lol" is old-skool at this point, perhaps, but it carries meaning that is very different from "Haha" or "That's funny". "old-skool" itself has kind of made a come-back, but not quite. it's confusing, but far from dull. I imagine anyone using it to be either a millennial or a Gen-X'er. Then we've got 'woke', which is definitely not 'woke' anymore, but it was, and it means something specific. That's not to mention how local slang may or may not break out onto the national stage. A word like 'matties' could be considered similar to 'buddies' or 'mates', but it's not. it's a bit more like 'brothers' or 'bros' but then it really isn't. I fully respect and share your enjoyment of the history and subtlety of language. I probably look up etymologies of various words more than once a day. It excited me to find out what decimate meant once upon a time. But holy fucking shit is it not possible to enjoy all that without being a snob? I can't even. Surely you can enjoy what has been without dismissing what is going on and what will come? I mean, are you like fifty and mad about it or some shit? Gosh! (that last paragraph was me mashing together what I feel are generationally distinct expressions, more than me actually being really upset about all this) My point is that I love the exact meanings of words but I really don't have any reason to believe language is becoming more impoverished as it evolves. If anything English is like the Borg assimilating all other cultures or languages. I'd love to hear anything but what seems to me to be plain pretentiousness or snobbishness as an argument to the contrary, though. Truly.