Creaky Voice: Yet Another Example of Young Women’s Linguistic Ingenuity
2nd June 2013
Read it.
The Atlantic, being a Voice of the Crust, approaches all subjects from the Standard Progressive Viewpoint, i.e. progress is inevitable, no progress without change, therefore all change leads to progress, therefore change is per se a Good Thing. Hence the headline — young women are changing the language therefore You Go Girl.
After writing up the list of associations on the board, I’d point out that for nearly a thousand years, double negation was standard in English. “I ne saugh nawiht” in Middle English; “I don’t see anything” in Modern English. Today, one can find it in French, which negates verbs by affixing the particles ne and pas to either side of the verb, as well as in Afrikaans, Greek, and a number of Slavic languages. The point: There is nothing inherently “ignorant” or “stupid” about double negation; judgments about speech are judgments about the speakers themselves.
Another Standard Progressive Viewpoint: All things are inherently equal, therefore it is illegitimate to judge one thing as better than another (except when it comes to the Standard Progressive Viewpoint, of course; we tolerate all things except intolerance).
Indeed, judgments about speech are judgments about the speakers themselves because some people speak better than others, just as all contests are about the contestants themselves because some contestants are better than others within the context of the contest. But context is alien to the Progressive mind, so away with it!