The funny thing about being a linguist is even though you know about sociolinguistics, the quotidian use of natural language remains surprising and amusing. (For the non-linguists in the house, sociolinguistics is the study of language through the lenses of social and cultural perspectives)
Even though I know all about regional dialects, I still normalize dialects, or parts of them, namely mine, my family, among others. My mom’s from Philly and says wooder where I say water.
Lots of people who do that say yuge where I’d say huge. So do people from New York City, of whom I’ve known plenty, as well as there being no shortage of famous people, media figures, and people with tiny hands. Yet more normalization.
My family and immediate circles don’t happen to say yuge though, so when I hear this, I do a double take:
“Even healthcare is a system now, not a yuman interaction.“
Normalization. Yet another obstacle to overcome in the quest for truth. If only I can stop paying attention to trivial differences long enough to see the important common threads.
If only!
(If this discussion feels like it barely scratches the surface of the subject, expect more discussion of normalization in future posts!)