How to Speak Human

Time, tide and the inevitability of change

As sure as tide and taxes, time marches on. And just as surely, communication evolves.

Technology often plays a major role in these shifts. Mediums like texting and character restrictions on social platforms instigated an explosion of acronyms, initialisms and entirely new visual language systems like emoji. Before that, it was the telephone that influenced the way we had conversations, or the printing press that changed our production and consumption of written content.

Even without changes to the way we communicate, language naturally evolves.

Read seven books, one from each century from the 1400s through to today, and it’s obvious how much English has evolved. Even a book published in the early 1900s can take some effort to read. Alternatively, just have a conversation about pop culture with someone a decade younger, and the speed at which language changes will have you wondering WTF.

By the time you read this book, new mediums will have emerged and language will have shifted.

Yes, we’re continually adding new words, and changing the pronunciation and meaning of existing words. One of our current favourites is ‘adorkable’, which means exactly what you’d assume (an adorable dork). Meanwhile, texting words like ‘lol’ (laugh out loud) have transcended literal meaning to become pragmatic particles or markers of empathy — words used ...