Stepping on the soapbox: Linguist edition (part II)

I AM BACK! I AM BACK!! There is no need to be afraid. Your beloved prescriptivist is back.

Inflation couldn’t stop me from getting hold of my beloved IPA “schwa.” So, here I am, uh, drunk as a skunk. Time for me to step on my soapbox and do some more prescribing :)) 

1. “Oh, they’ve got such an accent! I don’t have an accent.” SHUT UP! We ALL have accents. If you say someone has a “stronger” or “weaker” accent, I can accept that. Saying that you lack an accent altogether leads me to believe you simply do not speak — which WOULD be ideal in your case. You are not better for “not having an accent” and the other isn’t “worse” for having one. You are just misinformed, and they are just normal. Also, if you are not Black — barring few exceptions — stop using AAVE. You’re not being “cool.” You are just being disrespectful.  
2. Ah, yes. Anniversaries. A wonderful time to celebrate a milestone. However, my head heats up when I see anniversary posts monthly. “Happy x month anniversary!” I’m sorry, WHAT?? Anniversaries are YEARLY. You don’t celebrate your birthday every month, do you? Heard of the Latin word “annum?” “Annum” refers to a year. You can see it in the “ann” in “anniversary.” Next time you want to make a nauseating monthly update post on social media, don’t say “anniversary.” I will still skip past the post, but at least I won’t go ballistic. 
3. Babyyy, Mommy, Daddy. I needed a shower just thinking of these words. If you indulge in baby talk with another adult unironically in a romantic/sexual way, please reconsider your life choices. Get creative in addressing each other! If you ARE going to make me cringe, I would rather hear something unique. I love love. I hate out of place infantilism. The same goes for people who unironically use words like chad, alpha, beta, cuck. That’s not quite infantilism, but y’all need to grow up. 
4. NATIONAL Basketball Association. WORLD champions? It is bad enough that your “national” basketball association includes a team from Canada — a pretty competent franchise as well. But calling yourselves “world champions” just doesn’t add up. Using a “world champion” label would be appropriate if the franchises were from most/all inhabited continents. As it stands, the franchises don’t even cover all of the U.S. Bring back the Supersonics! 
5. The word “woke” used to top my most hated list because of its misuse. Every utterance of “woke” still makes me want to punch a wall. However, my latest hated word is “winningest.” Now, I AM a prize and I LOVE winning! But I cannot take so much winning that we use the word “winningest.” I get that it is nice to have one word for “someone or something with the most wins.” However, something about adding the -est suffix to an existing -ing makes me want to throw up in my mouth. “All time winningest” in particular sounds redundant to me, and I’ve heard it multiple times. 

You know what? Let’s just go around saying winningest and losingest and leave me dyingest and let the world endingest. I’m done!

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