Is American English dying?

Somewhat relevant (maybe?) brilliance from the world’s best troll.

But media is the plural of medium. Its use as a collective noun is recent (and annoying).

supportive source

American English: The government is…
British English: The government are…

In American English, group nouns like government and team and such take a singular verb. The source I cite is my head. Group nouns in British English take a plural verb. I cite Hyacinth Bucket.

Next time just get over to the left.

It’s definitely an American English vs British English distinction, as @Hawaii_Jake describes it. A few years ago, I had to look this up because I found it difficult to understand what was being said in some cases. I couldn’t match the subject and verb. For example, “A pack of wolves is chasing me” is common in American English, while it appears that “A pack of wolves are chasing me” is common and acceptable in British English.

Like many things, it’s just personal preference. Teachers in the U.S. are so strict about making sure that students understand that the subject (pack) matches the verb (is), that to suddenly start hearing that a pack are can do strange things to the brain – well, mine anyway.

Good English grammar is good grammar. Good American English grammar depends on where you are in the US, and that is also questionable. I was always amazed that, while living in Washington state, people there would say “Warshington.” I have heard several people from the south, who surely know how the word ‘siren’ is pronounced, say “sigh-reen.”

Nah. I think the world is just smaller and we all interact with each other more and everything starts to sound right. American English is simpler in many ways. Shorter words (I don’t even know if you can play scrabble in the King’s English) and schools still teach American English. A mistake like you describe could just as easily be someone who doesn’t know it should be the media is.

I live in the US. I graduated high school in the US. I’ve worked in the US.

I learned to read with Tolkien and Rudyard Kipling. Most of my favourite television shows are made by BBC, Sky, and Acorn. Most of my favourite authors are British or Irish. My hobby surrounds British and Irish history, reading scholarly sources by British and Irish people.

My grammatical knowledge is a big bowl of linguistic jiggery-pokery, and I honestly forget which way is up sometimes.

There goes the neighbourhood.

‘Zactly.

My good friend from Reading will be chuffed.

I’ll die before I spell “color” with a “u”. ;)

The effrontery almost put me in hospital!

^^The hospital.

@jaytkay Were you on holiday at the time? When you come home, ring me up and I’ll come ‘round for a cuppa.
HAHAHAHAHAHA!
@JLeslie, he was being funny.

Me too.

@Hawaii_Jake not dying so much as being murdered.

Funny thread!

I have a confession. I have up coffee 5 years ago. I drink hot tea even on hot days.

^^We might have to deport you.

Whoa. I say the media are because it feels more gramatically correct in my opinion. And I’m “American.” The media is is perfectly acceptable as well because you can refer to them all as a group.

Now have a spot of tea and crumpets and off to bed you go!

Righty-o!

Gotta love @Seek‘s jiggery-pokery!

@Yetanotheruser—so in its technical sense, is that phrase American English or English English? ;)

The plural that always throws me is “data are”—I’m so used to thinking in group nouns that I want it to be “data is”—and probably “data is” really is fine, too—I’ve just had so many people triumphantly declare (usually interrupting me in the process) “haha! It’s are!” ... Going off an example above, “the pack of wolves are” makes immediate sense to me, but simply saying “the pack are” would take me a second… probably because the mention of the wolves reminds me of the plural midsentence, and when it’s just the “pack” I fall back to thinking of it as a singular concept.

@Soubresaut …is that phrase American English or English English?

YES!

I’m sure poor grammar, I mean, American English, will remain alive and well with the deconstruction of free education in the USA. I have a cousin living in the US with a Masters in English and she has to edit papers written by people who consistently surprise her with their lack of writing skills. They have PhD education and still can’t manage to avoid her constructive red pen. I consistently mess up now because I think in two languages, especially my conjunctions.

I am shit at English. My brain doesn’t work that way. But if you want to have a contest with differential equations I will knock your dick/clit in the dirt.

I’m in the UK and would say media are and government is. The first is plural and the second singular wherever you are.

I agree with flutherother, and I would also say ‘the pack of wolves is’ (because the verb is for the singular ‘pack’.

American english is no more than an ugly noise when spoken & a car crash when read.
It’s called english for a reason, coz we talk it all proper like…

I would say pack of wolves is. “The pack is,” the verb “is” goes back to the noun “pack.” The preposition “of” is a clue that the verb goes back to the noun “pack.” “The wolves” could be completely left out if everyone in the room knew what pack was being talked about.

I thought about this more. Maybe a test is can you put “a” in front of it? A pack of wolves, so it’s singular. A media outlet. You wouldn’t say “a students…” I don’t know if it works in all cases, but it’s a cheat to see if it sounds correct if you can’t rely on just knowing the rules for singular and plural.

My English isn’t great, so I’m just throwing out an idea, I don’t know how well it works.

Media is plural, so your example does not hold.

As for your concerns. I’m more worried about English English—you know, the English from England.

It’s appalling how the American tendency to almost never use adverbs has infected the UK and English speakers across Europe.

I agree.

(The pack) [of wolves] {is}
Noun Adjective clause Verb.

@Kropotkin: “Media is plural, so your example does not hold.”

The definition of media that @Hawaii_Jake is referring to is not plural, however. It is a collective noun, like pack, herd, group, etc. In American English, collective nouns are treated as a singular unit, and the verb should match. My understanding is that this is not the case in British English.

Most collective nouns have a sensible adjective phrase attached to them, least sometimes.

You wouldn’t just say “The pack roamed” without somewhere else in the context referring to the wolves that make up the pack.

So, a fluther of jellyfish, a herd of sheep, a media of bloggers?

@Seek: “You wouldn’t just say “The pack roamed” without somewhere else in the context referring to the wolves that make up the pack.”

The collective doesn’t need to be defined in the same sentence, as you point out.

@Seek: “So, a fluther of jellyfish, a herd of sheep, a media of bloggers?”

Do all collective nouns require the ability to do this? How about “the press”? When we refer to “the mass media”, “the media”, or “the internet”, it’s most common to consider this as an institution.

I’m not sure if this also applies, but it’s not unusual to see people use Google as a plural noun, rather than a collective. Again, I’m not sure if this is a British/American split. “Google are making huge profits” sounds very odd to me, but that’s because Google, while consisting of 50k employees, is a company and therefore a singular collective noun.

Although, I could be completely wrong here. We’re missing our grammar expert :(

I would say “the press is”, but I’m not entirely sure that’s accurate. Instinctively I think of “the press” as singular, because it’s based on the singular term for the machine. “The internet” is one thing, so that doesn’t help.

“Media” is a plural noun. Medium is singular. If “the press” was “the presses” we’d be having a different conversation.

Google is one company. The company is making profits, not the 50K employees.

@Kropotkin “the American tendency to almost never use adverbs has infected the UK”
I don’t usually think of what parts of speech I use when I speak. How would a UK person say something versus a USA person in regards to adverbs (or lack thereof)?

I think I just used at least one adverb and an adverbial phrase…not enough?

[Addition]: Oh, and why do you think that’s appalling?

@Seek – I think we’re in agreement about all of this with one exception: media. If we were to just focus on this term, do you feel that people are referring to the plural of medium when discussing the media? It doesn’t seem as though this is the correct definition. And risking jumping into appeal to definition fallacy, it appears that most of the online dictionaries I could find have “plural of medium” as one definition and some version of “system of communication” as collective noun. And it appears that much of the footnotes to this definition mentions that it can be used as either plural or singular noun.

I think we are probably wrestling with the British/American English thing even here, but I don’t think that’s necessarily a bad thing. Language is plastic, and will continue to evolve. The circuits that malfunction in my brain when I hear “the media are” will adjust through exposure.

Also, I’m talking out of my ass. I don’t know shit about grammar.

Yes, people are referring to the plural of medium, whether they know it or not.

Newspapers are a medium
Television is a medium
Magazines are a medium
The blogosphere is a medium.

To refer to them collectively is “the media”, as one would refer collectively to a Fender, a Gibson, and a Dean collectively as “guitars”.

Just because one definition of media in the dictionary lists it as the plural of medium has no bearing on the fact in American English “media” is a collective noun and treated as singular. @Seek, you can argue this until you’re blue in the face, but it will not change the usage of 330 million people who automatically say, “The media is.”

In high school, a class of students I was in gave our English teacher a dictionary at the end of the year with the quotation “Words do not have meaning. They have usage.” engraved on it. I do not now remember the attribution.

@Seek You are technically correct, but @Hawaii_Jake‘s quotation, at least by my casual (as opposed to scientific) observation, also seems to hold true. I’ve noticed the increase in usage of the term “media” as a singular collective noun, especially with the relatively recent explosion of mass media.

Yes. The popularity of this mistake does not make it correct.

So, I suppose, @Hawaii_Jake, the answer to your question is “Yes, and the current popular use of the plural word ‘media’ as a singular collective noun is a symptom of that slow death.”

You’ll appreciate my American use of quotation marks for the primary quote and inverted commas (er, I mean apostrophes) for the secondary quote.

@Seek, @Hawaii_Jake, but is the American English really dying, or is it an evolution? Usage of language through mass media has changed the way language evolves; instead of taking generations, we witness such evolution in terms of years, months, possibly even days. Most dictionaries list definitions by usage, and although I can’t cite any examples off the top of my head, I have witnessed change of usage of several words.

Of course it’s evolution. My comment about “slow death” is more referring to my emotion relevant to the evolution.

Popular culture is linguistically lazy. We’re collectively using fewer words, more acronyms, linguistic short-cuts, etc. Fewer syllables. Fewer words. Fewer sentences. News articles are pushed by a 100-character clickbait headline that is usually wildly inaccurate, and many people never bother to read the article itself. Too many words. If it can’t be distilled into a Twitter post, it’s not worth reading.

We have much bigger problems than whether “media” is a singular collective noun or a plural, but, dammit, I miss the days when H.P. Lovecraft was considered pulp fiction. And I wasn’t even alive then.

@Seek I miss the days when H.P. Lovecraft was considered pulp fiction.

You may add to that the days when a short story was considered to be casual reading.

Lol.

Evolution is a messy business.

Google isn’t a collective noun; it’s the name of a company. Of course, it’s a verb as well now which complicates things.

As far as the death of the American language, like @Seek, I’m not a purist and borrow usages from Britspeak at will. Of course, I also borrowed semen from my English Ex to make my two wonderful sons, so my standards is questionable.

@janbb so my standards is questionable. Is they now? LOL

@Yetanotheruser They is, they is!

<—- *shakes head

<—- *shakes fist at the heavens

@Hawaii_Jake Can a turtle shake its fist? Does it have a fist?

@pengy Your new profile picture allows you so much more leeway. You could get away with murder.

@Hawaii_Jake “I’ve got a little list, they’d none of them be missed.”

<—- shaking in my (soggy) boots

Gailcalled….

If you meet a man online and he asks you if you jiggery pokery, and he doesn’t call you the next day, is he standing too close at hand, especially if he doesn’t call you the next day? It sounded pretty stamey to me.

American English will never die as long as there are Americans. It will evolve, and it’s gonna be a fun time as distorted Spanish & Chinese expressions creep into our language. For all our faults, the French paranoia over corruption of the language will never afflict us. If you want an example of unsurpassed innovation, you have only to look at what we Americans have done with the Queen’s English. It really is astonishing just how versatile English is for stringing thoughts together. It allows us vocabulary of stupefying scope and variety which is the greatest vocal and literary toolbox the world has ever seen. English is one of those gifts we rarely think about when we tick off the extraordinary ways in which God (or fortune) truly did bless America.

I often correct my children if they use what I call ‘americanisms’. Such fun!

^^What are some ‘americanisms’?

I’m curious too @dxs.

I’m hoping they’re things I don’t even realize are unique to the USA. It’d be almost as surprising as the first time I used the word “bubbler” outside of New England.

Bubbler?

Bubbler is used in Wisconsin, USA. I don’t know if it’s defined the same as in New England? I’ve never heard it used in New England. Very few people in America have ever heard it in my experience.

They have said (in no particular order):
Diaper. It’s a nappy
Elevator. It’s a lift
Eraser. I get that one since the UK term is rubber
Fries. They are chips
Mail. It’s post
Flashlight. It’s a torch
Awesome. The phrase you are looking for is ‘quite good’

Cookie is biscuit
Apartment is flat
Horny is randy
Baby carriage is pram

@JLeslie cookie is a biscuit, yes. Apart from when it is a cookie

Fanny is…;-}

@ucme Just let me get my fanny pack

Hey, don’t make fun of my Aunt Fanny.

I just googled bubbler and got some rather disturbing looking images of hookah pipes. I have the answer now – a drinking water fountain

Fanny pack sounds like something attached to a blow up sex doll :(

And the Lola Love Doll features an easy-clean fanny pack with patented Rinse-Thru technology.

Bung some washing up liquid up there & Lola’s porn name is Fanny Bubbles

I DIED.

@Stinley Do you folks still spell jail as gaol? When I was young, there was a Summer when a girl from Devon shared my apartment and it was a real treat listening to the things that would tumble from her. Things like “the cooker”. But I have a question. How large does a truck have to be to qualify as a lorry? I mean is there such a thing as a pickup lorry?

If any of my kids ever called the beautiful game “soccer” i’d disown them on general principle, well…maybe hold their pocket money, or as you yanks say “allowance”

I think “diaper” is correct, and “nappy” is slang. But I’m checking.

From Etymology.com:

“to put a small, repeated pattern on,” from Old French diaprer, variant of diasprer, from diaspre (see diaper (n.)). Meaning “to put a diaper on” (a baby) is attested by 1951. Related: Diapered; diapering.

I finally found Nappy, waaaay at the bottom. It’s used mainly by you Brits, and it’s a version of “napkin.” It sounds slangy to me.

@Dutchess_III We’re talking about British and American English differences. Nappy is the term in England; diaper in America. There’s no right or wrong.

So, what we’re saying, is that a diaper is a serviette for a baby-booty?

Yes, like how a maxi pad is a “sanitary napkin”.

This thread is bringing me so much joy. I’ll celebrate with a cuppa.

@Hawaii_Jake Me too. Lets have a cuppa java with a half-a-slice of challah!

HOLLA!

I know what we’re talking about and I didn’t say it was wrong, @janbb.

Cuppa tea and a scone. Which rhymes with gone.

You can have a packet of crisps instead, if you want

I don’t do snacks. ;)

Wait…scone rhymes with gone. Well, I guess it should. But I’ve always heard it in my head as SC OWNS

I fill my car with petrol, gas is what my cooker is
I use my mobile phone, a cell is what a prisoner calls home

This is one of my favorite Q’s of all time, and it’s mainly all the different terms for the same thing across America. Just traveling from one state to another there is jargon that is misunderstood or unknown, forget across the pond.

@ucme – you have no idea how many times I’ve had people look at me all squint-eyed when I mentioned needing to stop at the petrol station on the way home. They’re like, “Dafuq is that?”

@Dutchess_III – “Macaroon” also rhymes with “gone”, at least if you’re cookery writer – er, I mean, cookbook author – Mary Berry.

Well…there is macaroon…mac a rown ee. But in my head I hear macaroon by itself as mac a rune.

@Seek You could confuse them even more by calling it a garage, that’s how a lot of peeps, including me, refer to the place. Can’t recall the last time I called it a petrol station

“garridge”, as opposed to “guh-raahj”, no?

I love you & would gladly sire elite offspring together ;-}

Someone should take up a collection to sponsor my return to the Motherland.

I wouldn’t kick you out of bed
Err, yeah, be cool to have a pint or three with ya over here :)

It’s Ga rah-ge if you please

Hee-Hee

Old carriage shed to me.

Solicitor is lawyer.
Cornflour is cornstarch.

There are so many.

@Stinley Oh I see. I thought you were going to mention something about a difference in grammar instead of nouns. Some of those sound so strange to me.
@JLeslie That’s a fun question. I’m adding my input now.

Thanks!

I would be moderated I’d I told the UK equivalent to borrow a cigarette.

@Seek Aren’t you American? If so, why call it a petrol station vs. gas station?

@Stinley Instead of “awesome”, you could have your kids children say lovely words like “smashing” or “wizard”.

An English teacher of mine used to tell the American students pupils “We don’t have a bathroom here.” Fairly mean, considering the kids were all about five. They did quickly learn to ask for the toilet/loo, though.

@Pied_Pfeffer – See above

@Seek, yeah I read that. As someone who spends ~half of the year in England with the British SO and the other half in the US, the terms used adjust to the location, other than the occasional slip. Using “petrol” vs. “gas” on US territory seems odd, thus the inquiry as to why.

:: shrug:: I’ve never claimed to be normal.

yes, I can’t say ‘napkin’ anymore. I have to say ‘serviette’.

If one of you Brits comes ‘round, don’t forget to knock me up ; )

@dxs I do grammar too
Gotten – it’s got. Apart from if you have forgotten…
Using adjectives as adverbs. I’m popping to the shops quickly not I’m going to the store quick.
We don’t take baths, we have baths
It’s not on the weekend. It’s at the weekend. This is a particular bugbear that DD1 says
Two weeks? No it’s a fortnight (That’s more a vocab one. sorry!)

@stanleybmanly what’s wrong with cooker? Good grief, I can’t even think what the ‘americanism’ is. Stove? You might use stove to refer to a range cooker like an Aga. A stove is also the hotplates where they are separate from the oven.
We don’t have trucks, that’s an ‘americanism’ we have vans up to 3.5 tons and anything bigger is a lorry, mostly these are trailers. You may refer to them as HGVs (heavy goods vehicles).

Give owa man, a mean howay, am ganna tell our lass yous are canny bairns, anar yuz tark & spell daft but neeone gives a toss.
A bet sum of yuz have nee clue worra am crackin on aboot, mehbees the brits & that looker alyson anorl

@Stinley My grandmother hated when I used the word got in any tense. She felt it was a lazy word I think, much like using the words stuff and thing. I try to avoid using the word got when I write.

@JLeslie I don’t get the Got Milk? thing. It makes no sense grammatically to me. I know it’s a joke but it has puzzled me for years

Away and stop yerself causing a stooshie @ucme

@Stinley Supposedly, when they translated “got milk” for Spanish speaking customers it sounded too much like “are you lactating.”

It’s true there usually is a better word than got.

Are you sure you got the package?

Are you sure you received the package?

I got ten dollars in my wallet.

I have ten dollars in my wallet.

She got free tickets to the concert.

She acquired/received/obtained free tickets to the concert.

I was raised in the Midwest, where it is “vacation” for everyone. Then I “took a vacation” and then met someone from Ireland who was “on holiday”.

@Yetanotheruser Right. We take vacations during holidays here in America. LOL.

I wonder do the Brits not only use holiday instead of vacation as you stated, but also use holiday the same way Americans do? Do they say phrases like “holiday weekend” and “stores are closed because of the holiday?”

I once had to argue with a boss about how it was OK to end a sentence with a preposition in some situations because we simply didn’t speak that way any more. He thought ‘Advice in which one may have confidence’ as a slogan instead of ‘Advice you can have confidence in’. (Older chap, perhaps raised by Quakers?)

Haddaway & shite @Stinley thows tarkin jock speak there like pet

Here’s a good one, if you say “space ghetto” in an american accent it sounds like “spice girl” said in a scottish one

@ucme – you’re a trip, brother.

@cazzie – I have to admit, I understand it is OK, but I still avoid ending sentences with prepositions.

Force of habit, really.

@Stinley

It took me a while to realize when I would ever even say “gotten,” but then I said “I’ve gotten better at that,” and it all became clear.

I’m definitely not sure about the adjectives as adverbs. “I’m going to the store quick” sounds fishy. “I’m going to the store real quick,” sounds better, and maybe under the category you describe.

I neither take baths nor have baths. I take showers. Do you have showers?

Who’s DD1?

I thought fortnight was archaic.

@Seek Well you did say you fancied a trip…kinda ;-}

@dxs quickly. Ugh, I don’t understand the trend in America to not use words with ly.

I take it personal. I hear this all the time. What happened to I take it personally?

In the Midwest a lot of people don’t know the word bitten, they say I got bit by a mosquito.

Oops. I was bitten by a mosquito sounds much better.

@dsx Ha, that’s great – just too alien for me to get right in my example! I would say I am going to the shops really quickly. It’s an americanism as I said :-P
I have showers as well as baths. I would also have a holiday in France.
DD1 is internet speak for Darling Daughter First Born. Popular on parent forums

@ucme I do have trouble with my short i sounds. Living in England, I have to modify my accent to be understood. Spoice Geuls. I have never said gi-ruls though. Or i-runs (irons)

I’m go’n’ down’tha g’rahj. Djoos guys wanna come wit’? Got some pop inna reefer.

@dxs gotten is a funny one. Even I think got sounds a bit funny anyway. We do use forgotten grammatically the same as gotten is used. Have you forgotten your shoes? is right. Have you gotten your shoes? is an americanism. Have you forgot your shoes? is wrong. Have you got your shoes? is fine. Go figure, as you might say…

English is weird.

@JLeslie “I take it personal” sounds ridiculous to me as well. “Personal” doesn’t even seem to the represent the same concept as “personally”. I guess acceptable omission of the -ly is on a case-by-case basis.
@Stinley Is “ain’t” an americanism? Ain’t doesn’t bother me. Pronouncing “ask” as “aks” doesn’t either, but I hate when people say “expresso.” Do they think it’s just a tiny serving so it’s express coffee? Off the top of my head, I can’t think of anything in your English that doesn’t exist in mine. All I can think of is the use of the word fancy. Fancy this and fancy that. American English is pretty broad anyway, so I’d figure UK English would be as well.

@Stinley I can’t get past this lorry/truck business. Over here, a van is a vehicle completely enclosed, whereas a truck is a vehicle with an enclosed cab and a separate bed behind it. A truck with a bed open to the sky is a pickup truck. What’s your equivalent for a pickup truck?

@dxs I think they are mixing up saying something like, “it’s a personal attack” with “I take it personally.” Or, they simply have heard the wrong thing long enough it sounds right.

I hear people say “drive safe.” That sounds wrong to me too. Maybe it’s acceptable? Maybe both safely and safe are correct in that sentence?

Some mistakes I can figure out based the first language of a community. I see why in translation the “mistake” in English might seem correct, but the adverb thing I hear mostly in white bread, been here many generations, middle America. It still might be rooted in immigration? I don’t know. So many American sayings and word usage can be traced back to immigrants coming into our country and their languages.

There are two words used by the Brits that always catch these American ears off-guard: “homely” and “diabolical”.

In the US, “homely” means plain, at best. More often, it’s a euphemism for something ugly. In the UK, it means the same as “cozy” or “comfortable”, often used to describe a house for sale.

As for “diabolical”, in the US, it means intelligent but evil. In the UK, it pertains to something really bad, like like a bad movie.

@Pied_Pfeffer Are you sure they aren’t saying homey? No L.

…in the US we use the word “Homey” to call something as cozy or comfortable, “Like home.” Of course, it has other connotations on the street.

“Diabolical” has always meant something evil. I’ve never heard anyone use it to mean “intelligent.”

Diabolical to me means evil using clever schemes.

Yeah. Good definition JLes. (That’s like JLo, but it’s JLes. See. ;) Isn’t that what it means in the UK, @Pied_Pfeffer?

It looks like @Pied has homely correct. Here’s a link. I like the way the UK defines it. It sounds more logical.

“Homely” probably came about as in “She probably never leaves home much because she unattractive.” That’s what I’ve always subconsciously thought, anyway. I always look for how words may have come about.

I agree that diabolical has no “intelligent” connotation. “Drive safe” sounds fine to me, and I have no idea what homely means. And that’s my two cents…uhh…err… pounds?

@JLeslie When you say white bread, do you mean Wonder bread or Sara Lee?

pence

@ucme “If you can say, It’s a braw bricht moonlicht nicht,’ then ye’r a’richt, ye ken!”

@Yetanotheruser Sounds like a line fom The Broons or Our Wullie or maybe Rab C Nesbitt

@dxs I’m just using it as an expression. It’s not like I don’t eat actual white bread myself, and I’m from the northeast. Although, probably SaraLee describes the group better if you push me. Certainly, Sara Lee deli meat would be a middle America stereotype for me too. I expect to find it in the Midwest and South, eaten on white bread with mayo. While I expect Boars Head and National Deli in the Northeast and southeast Florida eaten on rye with mustard. ~

@yetanotheruser that’s one for me rather than @ucme

@stanleybmanly the open flat bed things are not that commen here so I dont know what they are called. I would say they are a flat bed van but probably describe it until it was clear what I meant!

Drive safe is exactly what I am talking about. It is a classic Americanism

@ucme, It’s from A Wee Deoch an’ Doris by Sir Harry Lauder, circa 1912. Sir Harry also gave us such Scottish folk gems as Roamin’ in the Gloamin’ (1906) and Waggle o’ the Kilt.

Another more recent Americanism that makes me cringe is, “he disrespected me.” I grew up with, “he was disrespectful” (towards me).

Another new-ish term is he has “bipolar” rather than he has “bipolar disorder” or he “is bipolar.”

I know. I remember when “disrespected” first came out. I was like “What?” It’s so mainstream now it hardly registered.

One thing I am SO glad is fading is, “Baby daddy,” or “Baby Momma.” It’s like…WHAT?

Well how else do we describe the other parent with whom we have no other relationship? Oh yeah, my child’s other PARENT!

My baby’s father.