I love English. It is a beautiful language, a dynamic language that can find linguistic means of expressing everything on the face of the Earth – and this is saying a lot. It is a language full of endearing linguistic pearls like pitter patter. It is an extremely onomatopoeic language – a lion does indeed roar and when you are sleepy you actually yawn. So, why the need of ruining the wavy, soft sounds of this language with the ugly expression ish?
I absolutely loathe it when people use ish. I hate it when they attached it to words and I hate it even more when they use it on its own as if it is some lexical item that you can look up on the dictionary. E.g. (and this happened in a class I was attending), teacher asks student if he is understanding whatever she is talking about and he replies, ish. Teacher asks student if he is done with his work and he says, ish. Excuse me? What do you mean by that? Why can you not reply something else, like not yet, not really, more or less? I’m not a native speaker and I could come up with at least three very acceptable phrases, so replacing the ghastly ish cannot really be that hard.
And what about when people turn to you and tell you they’ll see you at around 4-ish? This just kills me. No, you’re not seeing me around 4-ish because I don’t know when that is. I know when 4 0’clock is, when ten to four is, when five past four is, but I do not under any circumstances know what 4-ish is.
Ish, like many other expressions, is a linguistic fashion. Language is not immune to fashion, and certainly not a language such as English, which is so international and who everybody claims they can speak well (ahahahahahah!). I am not immune to linguistic trends either and I hear myself, with much disgust, saying such atrocities such as totally and gosh and sometimes I even say oh my god in this very OC-like way. Excuse me – in this very OC-ish way, actually (it’s really not my fault that the only funny thing to watch on TV this summer was the OC, is it?). I despise myself for speaking like this. I see it as the ultimate betrayal to the splendour of the English language, a language that resisted the invader so many centuries ago and stood up to Norman French, a language that Conrad used to write the monument of truth and glory that is Heart of Darkness, a language that allows you to say jolly and darling and splendour in the grass and glory in the flower and love me do and dreadful, which hasn’t got such a great meaning but sounds so nice, and funny words like via, which for some reason always makes me laugh, and of course my beloved pitter patter.
I will vow to try and be immune to fashion from now on. I will vow to respect the English language and appreciate it fully and keep its integrity. And this will be my main project the next year, right after writing up my dissertation.
I absolutely loathe it when people use ish. I hate it when they attached it to words and I hate it even more when they use it on its own as if it is some lexical item that you can look up on the dictionary. E.g. (and this happened in a class I was attending), teacher asks student if he is understanding whatever she is talking about and he replies, ish. Teacher asks student if he is done with his work and he says, ish. Excuse me? What do you mean by that? Why can you not reply something else, like not yet, not really, more or less? I’m not a native speaker and I could come up with at least three very acceptable phrases, so replacing the ghastly ish cannot really be that hard.
And what about when people turn to you and tell you they’ll see you at around 4-ish? This just kills me. No, you’re not seeing me around 4-ish because I don’t know when that is. I know when 4 0’clock is, when ten to four is, when five past four is, but I do not under any circumstances know what 4-ish is.
Ish, like many other expressions, is a linguistic fashion. Language is not immune to fashion, and certainly not a language such as English, which is so international and who everybody claims they can speak well (ahahahahahah!). I am not immune to linguistic trends either and I hear myself, with much disgust, saying such atrocities such as totally and gosh and sometimes I even say oh my god in this very OC-like way. Excuse me – in this very OC-ish way, actually (it’s really not my fault that the only funny thing to watch on TV this summer was the OC, is it?). I despise myself for speaking like this. I see it as the ultimate betrayal to the splendour of the English language, a language that resisted the invader so many centuries ago and stood up to Norman French, a language that Conrad used to write the monument of truth and glory that is Heart of Darkness, a language that allows you to say jolly and darling and splendour in the grass and glory in the flower and love me do and dreadful, which hasn’t got such a great meaning but sounds so nice, and funny words like via, which for some reason always makes me laugh, and of course my beloved pitter patter.
I will vow to try and be immune to fashion from now on. I will vow to respect the English language and appreciate it fully and keep its integrity. And this will be my main project the next year, right after writing up my dissertation.
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