But you didn’t want to know about Yiddish. You wanted to know about language loss in English. Of course it’s the lesser-used words that disappear. Once upon a time I was known as the professor who in the middle of the lecture stopped and said – “Oh, what’s his name? Shakespeare!” I was young so it wasn’t taken by the laughing class as a sign of dementia, but my quirky sense of humor. Now, it would be suspicious. People would try to help me. Shout out advice – “forget it – it will come back in an hour” “or the middle of the night” And it would indeed return at the most inappropriate times – a word totally unrelated to the context of the conversation.
I know this happens in every language, but in the middle of a lecture?
oy, I need to go to a conference (one of my most hated activities) so I can remember the language used for my profession.
language loss continued
But you didn’t want to know about Yiddish. You wanted to know about language loss in English. Of course it’s the lesser-used words that disappear. Once upon a time I was known as the professor who in the middle of the lecture stopped and said – “Oh, what’s his name? Shakespeare!” I was young so it wasn’t taken by the laughing class as a sign of dementia, but my quirky sense of humor. Now, it would be suspicious. People would try to help me.