Language changes through usage. Rules or logic play a part but eventually usage wins. However, the process is torturous for my mind. There are two things that are particularly irksome to me: the verbification of nouns and changes following fashion.
I’m sure nouns being turned into verbs has been happening all along but it seems like that transformation has exploded with the advent of the internet and new forms of communication. “I texted my friend” instead of “I sent a text to my friend” or “emailed” vs. “sent an email”. “Referenced” instead of “referred to”. Saying fewer words makes the change useful. I do this myself. That’s an understandable advantage given our culture’s bent for saving time and effort.
Changes related to fashion really bother me, though. This one has been sticking out a lot the past couple of years. It seems to have begun as a British thing. But now it is creeping into usage in American English. It’s the weird conjugation of verbs with collective nouns, treating them as plural words. Saying, “the team are” instead of “the team is”, “the family are”, “the company are”. How did this happen? Team is singular, “one” team, a term describing a group, as are “company” and “family”. I’m hearing this new usage spoken and written by many journalists now. Why? Is it some sort of demonstration of I-know-better-than-you. I don’t know. They have the journalism degrees, not me.
It’s hilariously funny to me that on a British TV show that I recently watched a character makes the point that “team” is a collective noun that should be treated in the singular sense. Lol
The language is alive. That’s why it changes. I’m going to approach my observance of this develpoment with curiousity instead of negativity as much as I’m able. Vive la langue!
(There’s another aspect of our communication that I might cover later: the use of profanity and its detrimental effect on effectively descriptive communication.)