By DeAnna Cameron //
Last month, we talked about how “whoa” is transforming into “woah,” especially among younger people, and it reminded me how much, and how quickly, the English language can change.
Not so long ago, when I was a bright-eyed reporter working in local newsrooms, few writing sins could earn an editor’s wrath like using “cement” when “concrete” was the proper term, or “podium” when it should have been “lectern.” Another one that my editors hammered into me was knowing the difference between, and proper use of, “persuade” and “convince.”
Cement is the powdery compound used to make concrete, not the solid surface itself. A podium is simply a raised stage, not the stand lecturers often stand behind when speaking. And one could persuade someone to do something or convince them that something was true. The terms weren’t interchangeable, and they shouldn’t be that way.
These language rules and others were burned into my brain so completely that while most dictionaries have since reversed themselves on every one of these rules, the words still set off my mental fireworks whenever I see them.
The most recent shocker was the news that Merriam-Webster now considers “irregardless” a nonstandard but acceptable synonym for “regardless” (https://www.npr.org/2020/07/07/887649010/regardless-of-what-you-think-irregardless-is-a-word). I’m still having trouble wrapping my head around that one.
Yet, here we are, as the inimitable Edna Mode would say.
The fact is, language isn’t like math or any subject where there’s one firm and final answer. There is no governing body regulating the English language. Its rules follow usage, and if usage changes, the rules will change. That’s why dictionaries and the Chicago Manual of Style, a guiding authority for many writers and editors, have to publish new editions every so often. They have to keep up to stay relevant.
That’s what writers and editors have to do, too. We can’t fall back on the rules we learned years ago, because in many instances they simply no longer apply.
QUESTION: Are there any old language rules you’ve had to unlearn?
DEANNA CAMERON is the founder and managing director of O.C. Writers. She’s also a hybrid author currently writing YA dark fantasy as D.D. Croix and an occasional copy editor who’s never met an Oxford comma she didn’t like. Learn more at www.DDCroix.com.