Other posters here are bemoaning the degradation of language, kids these days and their hippity hoppity music and tock tick videos, and so on... But we should

Other posters here are bemoaning the degradation of language, kids these days and their hippity hoppity music and tock tick videos, and so on... But we should bear in mind that one of these women was a professional novelist, and the other, one of the first professional typists. Meaning they both had a much higher sensitivity to the use of language than the average Joe on the street. They were professionally more literate and intentional in the use of language than the average. A better comparison would be modern professional writers or speakers. Or if you prefer, compare modern tiktok speech to those "cockneys" who sang the bawdy song. I am not discounting the terrible effect on the English language of the kids these days, of course. We are all entitled to our expression of "ugh" like the magistrate in her story.