Tuesday, August 28, 2018

linguistic meditation: "...all the things!"

While we're on the subject of trends in language, someone needs to explain why some people are now saying "...all the things!" in a slangy way. The expression is used with a humorously wild-eyed tone of voice, often to mock what someone else, an interlocutor, has just said.

Example:

FRED: They really should ban incandescent light bulbs.
TED (in the exaggerated tone of a mad English king): Quickly! Ban all the things!

I'm seeing and hearing this more and more, and as with certain other stupid linguistic trends ("Not!!" "I know, right?" "Amazeballs!" —etc.), I find this increasingly annoying and hope that it eventually—sorry, I mean soon—dies a horrible death.



6 comments:

  1. I've given up trying to understand all the things kids are saying these days.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Once I stopped working with adolescents, my life became a slow, inexorable slide into cultural irrelevance.

    ReplyDelete
  3. My slide, while no doubt equally inexorable, has been head-spinningly rapid.

    And I'm OK with that. I'm just waiting for the day I get my government-issued porch and rocking chair.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Forgot to say I SAW WHAT YOU DID THERE in that first comment.

      Delete
  4. Yeah, Charles beat me to it. And all the things I might have said!

    ReplyDelete
  5. Heh. I figured it just went without saying.

    ReplyDelete

READ THIS BEFORE COMMENTING!

All comments are subject to approval before they are published, so they will not appear immediately. Comments should be civil, relevant, and substantive. Anonymous comments are not allowed and will be unceremoniously deleted. For more on my comments policy, please see this entry on my other blog.

AND A NEW RULE (per this post): comments critical of Trump's lying must include criticism of Biden's or Kamala's or some prominent leftie's lying on a one-for-one basis! Failure to be balanced means your comment will not be published.