Linguistics Blog

Gabriel Han
IHSS

Buzzwords

The article I read was about buzzwords, and what they were and how they affected speech. A buzzword is a word with patterns, those patterns being that they have little definitional value, they have a unique emotional connotation, and they have a lifecycle of being adopted into use rapidly, are overused, and lose meaning. You often find buzzwords in ads, where they are used to draw attention. Buzzwords can also be used in conversation to bring the tone up. They flow naturally in sentences, so you can use one to draw attention and bring the tone up, and then easily continue the sentence. The way they are quickly adopted and lost allows them to resurface later, and this helps our vocabulary 'breathe'. The reason I chose this article was because the 'Z's just popped out to me. The way they are so angular and low profile, yet when there are two, it just pops out so much. It is like a buzzword, as they have little meaning, yet can draw attention very quickly. I think buzzwords degrade overall sentence quality, but they allow for change in vocab and can make sentences more fun.

Source: http://www.inquiriesjournal.com/articles/1538/a-general-theory-of-buzzwords-synergistic-meta-linguistic-paradigm-shifts

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