Hey everyone! Welcome back to Everything Literacy.
In my first post proper, I have chosen a literacy topic that will be close to everyone’s heart: idiolect. You can’t get away from your idiolect. “Idio-” means ‘own’ or ‘personal’, so these are literally the words that you use everyday with your family, friends, significant other, pets, colleagues and, well, yourself!
Defined as “the speech habits peculiar to a particular person”, these are words that form your unique language signature.
There are different ways to build your idiolect, including but not limited to:
Alterations
Dialect
Slang
Pet names
Diminutions
Abbreviations
Cockney rhyming slang
Blended words
Mishearings
Made up words
The aim of this post is to explore how our idiolect develops over the eras of our life.
In the Beginning
Our idiolect first develops within our immediate family. These words and phrases will be a mixture of our parents’ idiolects that we take on as our own. For example, my dad’s favourite wordplay when I was little was “fairy snuff” (a humorous alteration of “fair enough”), because it conjured images of fairies for his two daughters and, of course, sounded funny.
We then bring in dialect words from our local area. It wasn’t until I was 16 years old and I offered a Scottish person a “cob” that I realised this was a regional word from the vernacular of my home city of Nottingham, UK. I was most confused when their response was: “cobble stone?”, “corn on the cob?”. (Eh?) I have since lived in the north of England (“bap” or “barm cake”, anyone?), and in London, where you’ll find the use of the more universally-known “bread roll”. (Oh! Right, got it.)
However, as we move into our teenage years, we strive to set ourselves apart from those who came before (read: our parents!) by incorporating slang into our personal vocabulary. Each generation of teenagers generates their own set of words, which we take with us into adulthood. As an older millennial, I still say, “wicked” when I think something is ‘really excellent’, whereas my younger brothers in law will say, “sick”. You can easily spot slang words, as they either feel current (e.g. “slaps” is apparently the latest Gen-Z term) or outdated (e.g. “spiffy” was once on-trend, albeit in the 1870s). However, some words start out as slang but fill a linguistic gap, so they endure into the wider mass social vocabulary; namely “cool”, which was first introduced in the 1930s, and “awesome”, which was popularised after the release of the 1970 film ‘Tora!’.
The Next Episode
We then progress into extra-familial relationships as we grow older, such as housemates and live-in partners. Cue pet names (“Pranky” because a missed phone call turned into a joke about a prank call), diminutions (“blankey” because it sounds cosier), and blended words (“let’s do brunch”, “I’m on staycation”). Not to mention our love of abbreviations (“that film was totes emosh”. I’m talking to you, ‘The Curious Case of Benjamin Button’…)
As we proceed through life, we absorb and regurgitate words and phrases from the language around us. For example, you don’t have to live in the East End of London, or have been a child of the 1970s growing up with ‘Scooby Doo’, to use the idiomatic phrase, “I haven’t got a Scooby”, which utilises Cockney rhyming slang and takes inspiration from the oft-confused trait of the titular cartoon character.
The Final Countdown
As a parent myself, I have now come full circle. My three year old started saying “chimugs” one day. We think this came from a game played during his football coaching sessions at nursery, where they all had to sit on their footballs and shout out animal names. It possibly came from a mishearing of “chipmunk”, but even after questioning the nursery practitioners, this was never decisively confirmed. Nevertheless, the word has stuck around and now when anyone is being a bit cheeky in our household, we call them a “chimug”.
Using language in such a playful manner is not only creatively satisfying, but is ultimately a bonding experience that helps to foster stronger relationships.
As a literacy practitioner, the dichotomy between standard English use and the development the lexicon does not escape me. The point of etymology is to study the origins of words, and language change over the years, decades, centuries and millennia is inevitable. Without idiolect, arguably the combination of dialect and sociolect, language would never morph, distribute and develop.
So, don’t be a chimug, make yourself a wicked cob for brunch, pull on a blankey, and think about all the totes emosh words that make you uniquely you. And if you don’t have time? Well, that’s fairy snuff.
Do you have any interesting idiolect words that you would like to share? Who do you use the word with? How long have you been using it? Would an outsider be able to understand the meaning of the word if they listened in to your conversation? What do you most like about the word?
Please share your examples of idiolect in the comments section below!
Book of the Week
Title: Where the Crawdads Sing
Author: Delia Owens
Fiction/Non-fiction: Fiction
Genre: Drama, historical fiction, bildungsroman
I want to kick off my Book of the Week section with ‘Where the Crawdads Sing’ by Delia Owens for a number of reasons. From the very first page, it contains beautifully descriptive prose, which is sustained throughout the novel. It was my holiday book when my son was one year old and still taking regular daytime naps. This book got me back into prioritising reading. It is full of nature, as the author is a zoologist and conservationist in her profession, so it really feels authentic. It is a coming of age drama, which develops into a murder mystery. There is a film adaptation, which I haven’t watched yet (I have de-prioritised films for the moment, while I have prioritised reading, writing and podcasts… something has to give!), but I will definitely watch it as soon as I get the chance. I generally recommend that people read the book before watching the film, but that is not always practical.
Word of the Week
Word: gloaming
Word class: noun
Definition: The time of day when it is becoming dark but is not yet fully dark
Usage: “The distant mountains loomed faintly in the gloaming.”
Synonyms: twilight, dusk
I have chosen word the “gloaming” because I recently discussed it during a private tuition lesson where we were revising Romantic-era poetry, which draws on natural imagery. It conjures up beautiful images to mind, and some of my favourite personal skyline photography over the last few years was taken at this time of day. It also works well with my Book of the Week, where nature and time of day are major themes.
If you have enjoyed reading this post, then please come back next week when I’ll continue to explore the words we use, this time focussing on the sociolect of ‘Love Island’ (UK version).
In the meantime, keep reading, keep writing, keep learning.