By Jordan Kensington, Lizzie Stephens, Lucy Coleman , Ashley Davies
TWITTER SLOWLY ERADICATING TRADITIONAL BRITISH WORDS…
Traditionally British words such as ‘cripes’ and ‘balderdash’ are dying out amid the popularity of shortened text-style terms, it has emerged. Experts found a significant decrease in the use of words which our parents and grandparents would have uttered on an almost daily basis. Other words which have fallen by the wayside amid the LOL generation are ‘rambunctious ‘, ‘verily’, ‘salutations’ and ‘betwixt’. You only have to look on Twitter to see evidence of the fact that a lot of English words that are used say in Shakespeare’s plays or PG Wodehouse novels – both of them avid inventors of new words – are so little used that people don’t even know what they mean now. A report found 73 per cent agree language had changed dramatically since people started using text messaging and Twitter. Researchers also found only 82 per cent are familiar with the word ‘raconteur’ and 70 per cent have never used the word ‘shenanigans’. Researchers also found only 82 per cent are familiar with the word ‘raconteur’ and 70 per cent have never used the word ‘shenanigans’.One in fifteen adults has never used the word ‘drat’ and half didn’t know what a ‘cad’ was.Despite this 83 per cent think they have a good vocabulary.One quarter of Brits say they now use ‘text speak’, like ‘lol’, ‘jel’ and ‘soz’ when in verbal conversation as well as using it in written communication on mobile phones, emails and social media sites.Other words that Brits said they didn’t use anymore included ‘bally’, ‘swell’ and ‘rambunctious’.Just nine per cent have used the word ‘bogus’ and only ten per cent have used ‘fiddlesticks’ and only three quarters have used ‘oopsy-daisy’
CHELSEA MONTHLY TOP TWENTY UNUSED WORDS
Bally
Laggard
Felicitations
Rambunctious
Verily
Salutations
Betwixt
Lauded
Arcane
