Language homogenization at Harvard
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Language homogenization at Harvard
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Re: Language homogenization at Harvard
#2> Suppose we were going to rate words on a scale of one to ten in two dimensions. First, we are going to rate how old fashioned a word is. Second, we will rate how funny the word seems to us.
> For example, if we wanted to rate "poppycock" we might say that it's a 9 for "old fashioned" and an 8 for "Funny". Poppycock would be 9, 8. Another word, like snail, isn't especially old fashioned or funny. Though, the word has been around a while - we could call it a 5, 2.
This is a sense of "old-fashioned" that I've never heard of. As far as I'm aware, "old-fashioned" is entirely defined by not being in current use. The age of the word is irrelevant, but if it were relevant, and "poppycock" - a word from the 19th century - were a 9 out of 10, "snail" - a word from Old English - would be something more like a 1500 out of 10.
Re: Language homogenization at Harvard
#3> Suppose we were going to rate words on a scale of one to ten in two dimensions. First, we are going to rate how old fashioned a word is. Second, we will rate how funny the word seems to us. > For example, if we wanted to rate "poppycock" we might say that it's a 9 for "old fashioned" and an 8 for "Funny". Poppycock would be 9, 8. Another word, like snail, isn't especially old fashioned or funny. Though, the word ha…
I suppose "old fashioned" is much more of a subjective measurement than an objective one. At first I was going to rate "snail" as not at all old fashioned, since we still use the word. But then, I thought of medieval snail drawings, and felt like the word has some element to it that does harken back to older days. "Citadel" is kind of a similar example. There is a modern hedge fund named Citadel and we still use that word, but it also has a connection to the past. I'd say Citadel is more "old timey" than "snail" even though both words are in modern parlance.
A better way to think about it is that these measurements are my subjective opinion on old timeyness and sillyness via an undefined and intuitive process for assigning values.
Re: Language homogenization at Harvard
#4I'd like to see a study of vocabulary with the number of unique words we have used over time. My sense is that older prose has a much richer and more varied vocabulary.
The studies could be showing that we use a smaller dictionary today.
Re: Language homogenization at Harvard
#5> Suppose we were going to rate words on a scale of one to ten in two dimensions. First, we are going to rate how old fashioned a word is. Second, we will rate how funny the word seems to us. > For example, if we wanted to rate "poppycock" we might say that it's a 9 for "old fashioned" and an 8 for "Funny". Poppycock would be 9, 8. Another word, like snail, isn't especially old fashioned or funny. Though, the word ha…
I think that's why they say "old-fashioned" instead of "has an extremely old (attestable) etymology."
As a native English speaker, "poppycock" sounds more "old-fashioned" (maybe "quainter") than "snail," even though "snail" might actually be older.
Re: Language homogenization at Harvard
#6Noam Chomsky on suicide watch
In my point of view this is actually good news; Since I'm not a native english speaker and since this language has become the world's lingua franca it's very nice being able to understand an article just because the author's didn't waste time looking for bombastic synonyms just to sound smarter. I applaud this and projects like Simple English Wikipedia which allows us, non-native english speakers, keep learning.-
Re: Language homogenization at Harvard
#7I'd like to see a study of vocabulary with the number of unique words we have used over time. My sense is that older prose has a much richer and more varied vocabulary. The studies could be showing that we use a smaller dictionary today.
I had a similar intuition and graphed unique words per year while writing this. I found, surprisingly, that actually the reverse was true. Unique words per year go up, even as diversity goes down. Another finding that may explain this is that the articles get longer as time goes on - so a simple unique word count may just increase as a function of the authors using more words. There is a period in the late 80's to early 90's where average word counts per article nearly double. I'd speculate that this is about the time The Crimson switched to using computers or good word processing or something that made writing articles easier.
A graph that may get to the heart of your question is something like "Unique word percentage over time" or maybe "What percentage of articles use unique words".
Re: Language homogenization at Harvard
#8"It's not that their variance is decreasing it's just that their vectors are becoming more aligned." -- Ian Faith
Re: Language homogenization at Harvard
#9> Suppose we were going to rate words on a scale of one to ten in two dimensions. First, we are going to rate how old fashioned a word is. Second, we will rate how funny the word seems to us. > For example, if we wanted to rate "poppycock" we might say that it's a 9 for "old fashioned" and an 8 for "Funny". Poppycock would be 9, 8. Another word, like snail, isn't especially old fashioned or funny. Though, the word ha…
I would probably model "old fashionedness" as a question of "when was this word's popularity peak?" i.e. how long ago (how "old") was the time at which this word was at its most popular (most in "fashion")?
Re: Language homogenization at Harvard
#10Reminds me of grad school where there was literally only one correct way to write a particular sentence or paragraph in a manuscript according to multiple advisors over the years. Frequently that way is synonymous with what was originally written, but apparently the original doesn't have the correct "feel," or whatever. For a physical sciences paper, where no one is a particularly good writer.
Basically, communities seem to get into vocabulary and sentence structure ruts. Deviation means your reviewers are going to give you more shit, at least indirectly.