Via Laudator Temporis Acti, a passage from Vita Sackville-West’s Country Notes (1939):
How much one regrets that local turns of speech should be passing away! There was a freshness and realism about them which kept the language alive and can never be replaced. Imported into prose they become fossilised and affected, for, accurately reported though they may be in those novels of rural life of which one grows so tired, the spontaneity and even the accent are lacking; imported into poetry, they instantly sound like the archaisms of a poetic convention. If I read the phrase, ‘The cattle do be biding in the meads’, it gives me no pleasure at all, but if a cowman says it to me (as he once actually did) it fills me with delight. I like also being informed that the rabbits are ‘interrupting’ or ‘interfering with’ the young trees; at least, I do not like the fact, but the way in which it is conveyed does much to mitigate my annoyance. I resent the mud less when I am told that the cows have ‘properly slubbed it up’. Then sometimes comes a proverbial ring: ‘He talks too much, talk and do never did lie down together.’ I do not see where we are to find such refreshing imagery in future, unless, indeed, we look to America where the genius of the vivid phrase still seems to abide.
It’s an acute observation that reminds me of the “kids say the darndest things” phenomenon: when you actually hear a kid say something cute, it’s great, but when you see it written down in a magazine it becomes annoying. (And I’m afraid the genius of the vivid phrase no longer abides in America.)
If the genius of the vivid phrase abideth no longer in America, where doth it now abide?
It abideth not, nay, neither doth it tarry.
You obviously don’t listen to a lot of rap.
Rap is poetry, not “local turns of speech.” It’s good that we still have poetry, but that’s not really what Sackville-West was talking about.
All my older relatives were from a place in the Netherlands (the island Texel) where most of them grew up (pre WWII) speaking, or at least knowing, the local dialect of Dutch known as Tessels. Tessels was full of unique sayings and turns of phrase not used on the mainland, and mostly gone from the island’s lexicon today. From my own exposure to it in the 1950s and 60s I gained a passing familiarity with it, and helped my mother document a long list of sayings and phrases that became part of the preserved archives of the dialect. But today, while it is well-documented, the dialect is used almost exclusively by hobbyist preservers of it, and in that setting the wit and wisdom of those nuggets doesn’t have the same effect as spontaneous usage.
It may be true that in some parts of the US, genuine “country speech” is still preserved, as in Southern regions where people can still say things like “bless her heart” and “slick as a butterbean” without sounding inauthentic.
Could it be that both of the sweeping statements, “America where the genius of the vivid phrase still seems to abide” and “the genius of the vivid phrase no longer abides in America”, are artifacts of observation biases? There are both verbal wits and inarticulates in every society at every time.
True, but I find it hard to believe that the universal triumph of totalizing media, from radio to TV to all the stuff we have now, has not had any effect on localized speech and personalized wit. Everyone’s quoting memes these days.
But I grant your point about observation biases and would like to see an actual study, if there were any way to study such things.
Everyone’s quoting memes these days.
I would say riding hard on the memes. Memes are not quoted, but used. They do not point beyond themselves to anything worth thinking about. That’s why they’re popular – anybody can play.
Many things people have said or written are not worth thinking about either, even when quoted. For instance: “love is a new toothbrush”. This can be invidiously contrasted with a remark by Lily Tomlin: “If love is the answer, could you please rephrase the question?”.
if there were any way to study such things
You can always pin butterflies onto a square of cork.
My impression is that new turns of phrase are mostly coined on Tumblr these days.
Don’t sleep on twitter.
Not that I think the phrase was coined on twitter. That’s just where I heard it first
“My impression is that new turns of phrase are mostly coined on Tumblr these days.”
Ten years ago, yes.
“Imported into prose they become fossilised and affected” I don’t think this is limited to rusticisms; most personal aspects of speech are hard to capture in any written register other than comedy. As TvTropes puts it, reality isn’t realistic. Direct speech in narrative prose can and should never read like a discourse analyst’s transcription.
@Andrej Bjelaković: Indeed xkcd 1025 was just over ten years ago.
> True, but I find it hard to believe that the universal triumph of totalizing media, from radio to TV to all the stuff we have now, has not had any effect on localized speech and personalized wit. Everyone’s quoting memes these days.
Same as all the other days, then, except at one point we had the meme but not the word “meme”
Are you claiming that totalizing media and their mass effect are “same as all the other days”? Unless the “other days” are the last few days, that’s just not true. Such media were in their infancy when Sackville-West was writing.
Memes properly so called have been with us since Og told his son Og how he (the father) invented fire. Those faithless North African beasts didn’t get into it until later.
Well. To be fair, I kinda think that if media had that strong an effect on language, North America wouldn’t currently be in the midst of multiple competing vowel shifts.
But no, the relevant part of my comment was the part about memes.
Judging from my niblings’ speech, my hometown’s dialect still seems as full of Guarani calques as it was when I was a kid, despite the fact that they are growing up with Reddit, TikTok and Netflix while we only had the one local TV station. (Though this is, of course, a very impressionistic judgement.)
Guarani calques? In Argentina? What are some examples?
Misiones Province is full of Guaraní. When I was living in Buenos Aires we had a cook who spoke it (I tried picking up a little, but never got very far).
En el contacto con el guaraní, por su parte, se observa la estructura gramaticalizada había sido (que), que funciona como un adverbio, sin concordancia ni variación de ningún tipo, con el valor semántico de “percepción demorada” (cfr. ‘Tenía una novia bien guardadita [y yo no lo sabía hasta ahora]’, 13a):
1. (13) a. Había sido tenía una novia bien guardadita.
2. b. Hay una máquina para estirar el alambre había sido.
3. c. Eras vos había sido.
4. d. Por errores del sistema no se pudo cargar había sido el número gratis.
5. e. Ganó un sueldazo había sido ahí. (Avellana, 2013b).
..
En el guaraní paraguayo, por su parte, existen morfemas que se utilizan para mitigar la fuerza ilocucionaria del acto de habla. Por ejemplo, las partículas -mi y -na acompañan opcionalmente al verbo en modo imperativo y funcionan como fórmulas de cortesía que permiten suavizar una orden o mandato:
1. (16) E-ju-mi-na
2. 2 (imperativo)-venir- mi-na
3. ‘Vení un poco, por favor.’ (Guasch, 1956, p. 134).
Como muestra la glosa, en el español de estos hablantes se equipara consistentemente el morfema guaraní -mi con el español “un poco”. Esta última se ha incorporado, de hecho, como como atenuadora de órdenes en el español regional (Guasch, 1956; Avellana y Kornfeld, 2018):
1. (17) a. Sácame un poco mi muela enferma. (Guasch, 1956, p. 317).
2. b. Quiero que me bautices un poco mi santo. (Guasch, 1956, p. 318).
3. c. Decile un poco que venga.
4. d. Hacé un poco un asado.
5. e. Contá un poco un chiste.
6. f. Llamale un poco a Luis. (Avellana y Kornfeld, 2018).
https://www.redalyc.org/journal/442/44268382009/html/
@Y:
Argentina is not homogeneous, and the NE of the country has a strong Guarani substrate.
Some examples that would be typical of my hometown’s speech:
lavate pues tu mano (Standard Rioplatense lavate las manos de una vez, ‘wash your hands already’), where the Guarani-like features include emphatic pues calquing Guarani niko, absence of number marking when not discourse-relevant, and use of the possessive for body parts;
está ahí por la puerta (SR está ahí al lado de la puerta ‘it’s by the door’) or tienen sucio todo por su cara (SR tienen sucia toda la cara ‘they’ve got dirt all over their faces’), both calquing the Guarani adessive -pe ~ -me ~ -ve;
ellos están tomando agua de vos (SR ellos están tomando tu agua or ellos te están tomando el agua ‘they’re drinking your water’), calquing the Guarani separative -hegui.
Thanks! I had thought of Guarani as Paraguayan, not realizing it reached further into Argentina.