Society + Culture

Question 1

Euphemisms

Answer 1

Victorians created them for childbirth, bankruptcy etc - sensitivities change with time

Euphemism treadmill - Pinker 2003

Pejorative and Ameliorate

Question 2

Laziness and efficiency the same thing?

Answer 2

Linguistics suggest change is not lazy but more economically efficient

Eg ‘ omnibus’ for ‘bus’ - even the strictest prescriptivists have been effected by change

Question 3

Principle of least effort - Zipf

Answer 3

People will naturally save effort
Zipf thought these terms applied to life
Ease of articulation- ‘hanbag’
Omission- ‘banged’ Ed not pronounced
Neatening- ‘shoes’ ‘sh ooed’ regularised

Question 4

Prof Kirby alien language

Answer 4

series of made up words used to describe alien fruits. They have to familiarise themselves with the words then be tested.
Early participants did badly - random and unstructured
Experimenter introduces new words so they can’t recall names. All words used by first person are used for the next.
As language is passed through, turns into structured with easy to remember combinations