With an average of 1,000 words officially accepted every year, the Language Service Industry braces for their impact in both good and bad ways. Barbier wants to make the situation worse…
At the rate that the English language is growing, maybe there’s a societal reason behind it. The Global Language Monitor states that we actually create an average of 5,400 words a year, but most are not being used at a wide scale. How does this reflect on us culturally? The effect of rapid modernization forces us to find new words like “metaverse” and “cryptocurrency.” But also, we are a society that easily rejects or quickly evolves our traditional culture, re-identifying established words like “aware” with “woke,” or “part time jobs” with “side hustles.”
After some reflection, our tsunami-like word growth has to be due to our insatiability to be a part of the avant-garde, ready to adopt non-traditional language into our lives. Here are some examples of why this is not the same in all countries:
When a Barbier Language Trainer was working in a tradition-centric Spanish speaking country, we shared the word “ambicioso” for ambitious and “raro” for rare. In that country, those two words had a strong negative connotation when describing people. But in the U.S. the words are generally positive, describing people with a sense of reverence or admiration: “She’s very ambitious with her business.” “He’s a rare breed.” I asked why those words were considered negative and I was told that society looks down upon the avant-garde and out-of-the-box thinkers. This is also shown in English to English variations. The word formidable in American English has a negative conotation. Yet in British English that uses the French definition to describe something that is great or impressive is very much a positive. But that is also avant thinking.
How do we keep up with this pace, even as the English speaking world evolves so rapidly? Well, our answer is to add two more!
Barbier asserts that the word “evaluee” should be officially accepted. The evaluation process requires an evaluator and… you get the picture. A Google search shows that it is widely accepted, but it’s not officially accepted.
Also, “circumlocute.” Why do language trainers teach circumlocution, but can’t use it as a verb? People “circumlocute” all the time, when they can’t remember the word they want to use.
Is Barbier part of the avant-garde? We’d like to think so! If there is a tsunami of new words entering our vernacular every year, then we guess that all have to learn how to surf it!
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SOLUTIONS@BARBIERINC.COM
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Sources: https://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2009/aug/05/idiotic-joys-idioms
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