Happy Birthday Hashtag.
The symbol’s now been in use for ten years on Twitter. It’s changed the way we communicate online a lot, allowing us to condense complex messages into simple phrases, and has now spread beyond Twitter. It only took me about nine of those ten years to figure out how to use them. And even now I’m not entirely convinced I’m doing it right.
So Twitter has been trying to entice me recently, with fake profiles following me which look semi-legit, until I follow them back and they send me messages about these online games. And doubtless the links just lead to horrible viruses (I’m still trying to figure out Twitter’s angle by the way. It usually takes me a few months to figure out each social medium, and how to use it properly. I’m not there with Twitter yet).
Anyway, what intrigued me most about these dodgy ads was their use of the word addicting. This is normally the point where I get quite reasonable and say something like, Well, you might think it’s correct to say addictive, and that addicting is wrong, but actually it’s ok to use both.
To be honest though, I hate addicting. Both my heart and my brain tell me that it’s wrong, and that addictive is right, and that’s it. Addicting looks stupid, it sounds stupid, and it doesn’t seem to make much sense, linguistically. That being said, people do say addicting, so I’m at least going to investigate why they might do that.
By now you might be aware of Donald Trump’s latest addition to the English language: covfefe. If you haven’t heard yet, at 12:06am Washington time last night, the President of the United States tweeted:
Despite the negative press covfefe
…and that was it! Obviously he was deliberately tantalising us with this new word he’d coined, throwing it out into the world and waiting for us to figure out its meaning based on subtle clues he’s left, while he slept soundly. Here are some of my ideas:
If the ban were announced with a one week (sic) notice, the “bad” would rush into our country during that week. A lot of bad “dudes” out there! – Donald Trump, 30/01/17
First of all, it’s not a travel ban – Sean Spicer, 31/01/17
Political language — and with variations this is true of all political parties, from Conservatives to Anarchists — is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind – George Orwell, 1946
When is a ban not a ban? Continue reading
English-Language Thoughts 