The Obsolescence of phrases and the t-Shirt bra

The English language evolves continuously, words change their meanings almost from generation to generation. “Sick” used to mean unwell, ill, under the weather. For anyone over the age of 20 it still does. Fro a modern generation it is akin to “fantastic”.

Somewhere, somehow, subtly sentences sustained a serious setback in their construction. Parsing, clause analyses and the parts of speech are no longer taught as grammar and spelling have taken a backseat to the immediacy and intimacy of the internet. Parsing alone remains as a term understood now by some computer programmers, a term that was replaced by software developer and software engineers.

A modern generation of young students would, the Slo-Man expects, be hard-pressed to explain the difference between a gerund and a present participle and who, in a support of “free expression”, never have been enjoined to not split the infinitive. These are examples of changed meanings or lost meanings, but the Slo-man is concerned here about terms that are no longer generally applicable or commonly usable, phrases that are obsolete because the situations or conditions they describe are no longer extant.

All this was brought to the attention of the Slo-Man by the LLBF, who was visiting after a recent trip to the shopping mall, in itself a concept less than 100 years old. On a cool late summer day in his adoptive city, reminiscent of the advent of the festival season of his far away foster city, waves of nostalgia washed over the LLBF.

On such a day as this, the LLBF was wont to remark gently “Ahh, my dear, a nipple in the air, eh?”.

And that brought the Slo-Man memories of an age past and left him lamenting the lapsing of lace lingerie and yet another phrase.

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