Chels

For all my talk of the literacy crisis, and all my efforts to keep my own mind active, I’ve found myself falling victim to a phenomenon I’ve been noticing online recently. In fact, Karly wrote about the homogenisation of language on the blog last month.

As a writer, I’m forever scouring for the word that fits just right. In fact, whenever I’m working on a piece of writing, fiction or non-fiction, I have multiple tabs open from frantic Google searches for synonyms of words. The problem for me doesn’t lie in my work, but in my casual speech and writing. I’ve become extremely conscious of it over the last few weeks.

There’s nothing wrong with slang – sociolinguistically its development and use is incredibly interesting to study. The problem isn’t even when slang replaces standard language; plenty of the standard English we use would have been considered slang upon its conception – famously, goodbye originated as a contraction of god be with ye – and language naturally has to change and evolve with time. The problem, at least for me, is a kind of reliance on a small subsection of language to the detriment of our speech. The most annoying issue I have developed is the constant adoption of online slang, words that I often find myself reliant on – I am far too easily influenced.

The Diva Problem

For me, the biggest problem is diva. I’m not even sure how or when it started, but over the last few months, everyone and everything is diva. I’m not even 100% certain if I’m using the word as a noun, an adjective, or even a verb. It’s become a whole new entity.

In an attempt to hold myself accountable, here is a sample of some of the many things I’ve called diva this year:

• The Hotel Inspector
• Mint green Fiat 500s
• Benedict Bridgerton
• History and Politics as a degree
• Harry Kane and Jude Bellingham
• Bratz dolls
• Being 5’6
• Karly’s cat
• My new bed
• Chips
• Dogs in turtlenecks

In just one chat, searching for diva brings up 285 results from me. There’s absolutely no need for it. Diva has become a term of address, a conjunction, a reaction – it’s taken over. I need to be stopped.

The thing is, in a vacuum it’s harmless. We all have words or phrases that we use too often. I’m just incredibly conscious that succumbing to the homogenisation of my vocabulary will have long-term effects on my mind – if I’m not searching for the correct word and instead just allow a substitute word to take its place, am I risking damaging my ability to recall words that I don’t use as frequently. Will it affect my memory? They often say that learning a language is one of the best ways to protect your brain as you age, so surely there’s a link between speech and language and neurological health.

How I’m Vocabmaxxing

Vocabmaxxing is a bit of a tongue-in-cheek term that’s started to crop up in the last few months. It’s a play on looksmaxxing, the chronically online term for trying to improve your appearance – the 2020s version of a glow up, perhaps. Of course, I could be sensible and say that I’m widening my vocabulary, or that I’m focusing on my language choices, but where’s the fun in that?

Word of the Day

There are so many word of the day apps, and bizarrely, a lot of them require a subscription. If I couldn’t find a free app, I was considering going old school and flipping to a random dictionary page each day, but luckily, I found WOTD, a widget app that presents a word of the day, including pronunciation and definition. I’m not sure if the word of the day is completely random, or if they go by theme, but we’ve recently had a run of quite miserable words – torpor, inanition, and megrims – back to back. I haven’t actively used any of the new words the widget has shown me yet, so maybe it’s not as effective as it should be, but I’ve felt as if I’ve been proactive since I downloaded it.

Etymonline

I have loved Etymonline forever. It’s an online dictionary that details the origin and development of pretty much every word in the English language. I love etymology – I was devastated in secondary school to find out that you couldn’t exclusively study a degree in etymology. While I’ve used Etymonline for years, I only recently downloaded the app – in an attempt to encourage me to follow my curiosities. While the app doesn’t have a word of the day, it does have a trending page, which is doubly interesting – some current trending words make sense – autumn and equinox – while others like interaction and courage don’t seem to have a clear cause for their spike. 

The Diva Ban

While it’s not technically a ban, I’ve chosen diva to be the first target of my attempt to be more conscious with language. My goal is to be more aware of what I’m saying, and to consciously replace problem words with literally any other word, to try and reverse my reliance on it.

Based on that same searchable chat, I used diva 18 times in September so far, compared to 40 times in August. Trying to hold myself accountable makes me more conscious of all my language choices.

I think inherently we’re a bit lazy when it comes to language, especially our native language. In a second language, more conscious thought is required to choose the right words, and we take a more active role when we speak or write. We take our native language for granted a little, it’s so second nature that it’s easy to just stop paying as much care and attention to our speech as we probably should. I don’t think the laziness is a bad thing, necessarily – we all do it – but it’s definitely something I’m going to try and pay more attention to in my own speech going forward.