"What Charlie Parker is playing is not music."
- Lots of dopes during the late forties
Effin' dinosaur...
*How much? I subscribe to three separate podcasts that are each hosted by two guys named Matt. That's six individual people all hosting podcasts that can be introduced, "with your hosts, Matt and Matt".
- Lots of dopes during the late forties
It's been a couple years now since I've become aware of people younger than me using the phrase 'on accident'.
I listen to podcasts. A lot. A very lot.* I started in 2006, when most of the people doing it were comedians in their forties. In the past decade the popularity of podcasting has expanded to the point where it's the primary spoken-word medium for people with low-end to average tech. If you're even vaguely interested in anything, you can find a recorded discussion of it. You can find informed conversation to satisfy your curiosity, and you can find uninformed discussions to entertain you. And if you spend the bulk of your time alone with nothing to listen to but the internal doubts of your self-worth, podcasts are literally the best thing to happen in the history of everything.
And I guess 2012 or so was the year I started listening to content that was being generated by people who are too young to remember Happy Days. Occurrences of people saying 'on accident' ramped up quickly. No one reacted. No one stopped the speaker, who had uttered the phrase which had hit me so jarringly, like a drop of someone else's saliva in my eye, and asked, "why are you saying it that way? Isn't it ON purpose? Is that regional?" Everyone carried on as if they'd been hearing it their whole lives.
The cursory research I've done, which is hardly any, given the insufferable smugness of even armchair (perhaps especially armchair) grammarians, points to Barney and Friends. Someone on BAF once, if not habitually, used the phrase and now we, the parents who trusted our little pudding-brained treasures with a talking reptile from another dimension, have to live with the consequences of our neglect. Namely: a) this phrase, and b) grown adults dressing up like plush animals and boning down on each other at the Convention Center once a year. That's got to be Barney's fault too, right? I digress.
The grammarian battles, and I can't stress to you how tedious these discussions are, boil down to exactly two factions. There are those who acknowledge that language changes, that every common usage we currently enjoy and defend was once a linguistic mutation that wrinkled the noses of its first listeners. They are countered by the traditionalists, who have my heart, but whose arguments are all variations on the phrase, "it's just wrong".
I listen to podcasts. A lot. A very lot.* I started in 2006, when most of the people doing it were comedians in their forties. In the past decade the popularity of podcasting has expanded to the point where it's the primary spoken-word medium for people with low-end to average tech. If you're even vaguely interested in anything, you can find a recorded discussion of it. You can find informed conversation to satisfy your curiosity, and you can find uninformed discussions to entertain you. And if you spend the bulk of your time alone with nothing to listen to but the internal doubts of your self-worth, podcasts are literally the best thing to happen in the history of everything.
And I guess 2012 or so was the year I started listening to content that was being generated by people who are too young to remember Happy Days. Occurrences of people saying 'on accident' ramped up quickly. No one reacted. No one stopped the speaker, who had uttered the phrase which had hit me so jarringly, like a drop of someone else's saliva in my eye, and asked, "why are you saying it that way? Isn't it ON purpose? Is that regional?" Everyone carried on as if they'd been hearing it their whole lives.
The cursory research I've done, which is hardly any, given the insufferable smugness of even armchair (perhaps especially armchair) grammarians, points to Barney and Friends. Someone on BAF once, if not habitually, used the phrase and now we, the parents who trusted our little pudding-brained treasures with a talking reptile from another dimension, have to live with the consequences of our neglect. Namely: a) this phrase, and b) grown adults dressing up like plush animals and boning down on each other at the Convention Center once a year. That's got to be Barney's fault too, right? I digress.
The grammarian battles, and I can't stress to you how tedious these discussions are, boil down to exactly two factions. There are those who acknowledge that language changes, that every common usage we currently enjoy and defend was once a linguistic mutation that wrinkled the noses of its first listeners. They are countered by the traditionalists, who have my heart, but whose arguments are all variations on the phrase, "it's just wrong".
I'm fighting my own stodginess on this issue. It helps that the progressives have in their quiver the very sound argument that there should be some symmetry between the phrases involving accidents and intentions. I'd like to meet this new generation halfway and suggest that we ditch saying 'on purpose' and start saying 'by purpose'. 'On purpose' seems more arbitrary the more you think about it.
Just imagine listening to this.
"Lucinda, there's an avocado in the dishwasher. Did you place it there accidentally?"
"Why no, Gustav. I've placed it there by purpose."
That's really pretty sweet, isn't it? It's got a little Downton Abbey in it.
What I'm taking away from this is that it's cool to watch something develop, even if you're not on board. I've noticed this about pop music. It doesn't hit my ear right, but when I'm pressed for reasons, the only honest thing I can say it that it's now too complex for me, which is exactly the reason people shunned Bebop. We weren't doing things with melody and rhythm and production that stretched my definition of music when I was the audience for pop music, which is as close an analog for contemporary English usage as any. And I may never be a fan, but I'm not going to be the guy dismissing something as being inferior just because I can't understand it.
Just imagine listening to this.
"Lucinda, there's an avocado in the dishwasher. Did you place it there accidentally?"
"Why no, Gustav. I've placed it there by purpose."
That's really pretty sweet, isn't it? It's got a little Downton Abbey in it.
What I'm taking away from this is that it's cool to watch something develop, even if you're not on board. I've noticed this about pop music. It doesn't hit my ear right, but when I'm pressed for reasons, the only honest thing I can say it that it's now too complex for me, which is exactly the reason people shunned Bebop. We weren't doing things with melody and rhythm and production that stretched my definition of music when I was the audience for pop music, which is as close an analog for contemporary English usage as any. And I may never be a fan, but I'm not going to be the guy dismissing something as being inferior just because I can't understand it.
I love you, you love me,
Language grows organically.
I've got lame dogmatic arguments for you...
But usage dictates what is true.
Effin' dinosaur...
*How much? I subscribe to three separate podcasts that are each hosted by two guys named Matt. That's six individual people all hosting podcasts that can be introduced, "with your hosts, Matt and Matt".
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