Friends,
Hello and welcome to our third edition of Unpacking.
Carrie here. As we have promised experimentation with this newsletter, this edition is different because beloved Emily is OOO today. I’ll be authoring solo for this edition!
In lieu of a water-cooler chat, I’m going to muse out loud about a few language trends I’m noticing.
Benign expletives
Anyone else noticed the rise of what I like to call benign expletives? The outrageous events and behaviors we have observed in recent years have necessitated stronger language, it seems. The example set at the leadership level obviously plays a role: Trump's Public Expletives Another Break With Presidential Decorum. Most of all, I see expletives cropping up in folks’ newsletters, often as a way to express just how fill-in-the-blank something is. In a time when we live much of our lives online, are benign expletives a way to translate urgency on the screen when we less frequently hear people’s voices IRL? I’m curious if this could lead to more permissive language codes, and if that’s the case, I wonder what will be the next round of unspeakable words.
Flipped modifiers
I was driving through Kentucky last weekend and saw billboards for Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s re-election campaign with the slogan “Kentucky Tough.” The adjective (“tough”) is after the noun (“Kentucky”), rather than the other way around. This is the same structure as “Boston Strong” and very close to “Built Ford Tough.” I think the inversion does something rather peculiar. By placing the noun in front, it claims a totality…like the entire state of Kentucky is tough. Is the same thing happening when you say “Tough Kentucky” in a phrase? I’m not sure. Keep an eye out for more of these flipped modifying phrases and see if they sit with you in a different way. There is much to be said about the power of naming and claiming.
thank u, next
In the commotion of the past couple weeks, you may have missed Ariana Grande dropping a new album. I think she’s smart in lots of ways and am digging the way she titles her tracks as the way you would SEE them on a smartphone, rather than HEAR them on the radio. Plus, using language that looks more like what you would read in a text message makes it that much more relatable to fans, right? Favorite examples: “thank u, next” (she included a comma!!) and “7 rings.”
Okay, that’s the end of this random thread on tectonic language shifts in our world. Which ones am I missing? Shoot us a note at newsletterwizards@gmail.com or respond directly to this email.
Your newslettering-pal,
Carrie