SOZZLED WALLY IN BRILL DISCO BOOGIE*
Language evolves and a survey of people aged between 18 and 30 found they didn‘t know some of terms used by the older generation
TRY telling a young person about the nincompoop at the disco who got too sozzled to boogie and you u will be met with a blank face. e.
Adding that he’s a bounder r on the lookout for a bonk nk won’t help.
These are some of the words ds set to become obsolete within hin a generation.
A survey, from research firm irm Perspectus Global, showed 188 to 30-year-olds a list of 2000 words and asked them which ones they didn’t recognise.
The results were tosh. Two out of five had no idea that sozzled meant drunk and nearly as many didn’t know that a cad was a man who treated other people badly.
Across all age groups, 40 per cent believe it is right for some words to be consigned to history if they are insulting or old-fashioned.
However, 32 per cent of the over-50s felt it was sad that some words are dying out.
Linguist Sadie Ryan, from Manchester Metropol i tan University, said some words, such as betrothed, are falling out of use as what they describe is obsolete.
Others – such as nincompoop, balderdash and henceforth – have not been in common usage for the past 100 years and are ready for the
scrapheap. And judgmental words suchh as trollopll or bbounderd mightih be dying out as attitudes have changed.
Ryan said: “Taboo terms have a short shelf life. But a lot of these words have a direct modern equivalent. They have just been replaced by other words.”
Swot – a very specific term for someone who works very hard and makes sure everyone knows it – is on the way out. According to Ryan, this is because language reflects changes in society.
She said: “Swot comes from a time when techiness was less of a thing. Its current equivalent is geek or nerd.”
Lots of the words on the list come from youth culture, where language is in a constant state of flux. Insults, such as wally, plus anything about sex or drugs, changes really quickly. Take brill, for example,exa which was common playground-speak playgro in the 80s and 90s. RyanR said: “As soon as a word is used by a grown-up, it loses its cool status.” This Th explains why randy has fallen falle from favour. She said: “It’s slightly taboo and associatedass with younger peoplepeo and their identity as a generation. g “As soon as young people hearhe their parents use any language connected with sex or drugs it becomes unbelievably cringeyi and something they wouldn’t possibly use.” Disco and boogie go together as victims of their time. In the 70s, disco was both the venue and the type of music played there. Boogie was what was done there, to the sweet sounds of Donna Summer or Chic. Ryan said: “Words that are cool and linked to youth culture have a short shelf life. Today’s very specific words, such as lit or woke, will sound just as outdated to the next generation. “We can mourn the loss of discos but language changes and society changes. Each generation wants to establish its identity through language. “We need to make space for new words and let young people find their own words. And we need to make peace with that.”