News Semantic drift: What's your journey?

[Mel L]

Fascinating article from the NYT on how our language evolves. This is a gift link, so should be no paywall.

When Did Everything Become a ‘Journey’?

Changing our hair, getting divorced, taking spa vacations — they’re not just things we do; they’re “journeys.” The quest for better health is the greatest journey of all.

www.nytimes.com

 

[Peyton Stafford]

Oh, Christ! You are too smart for me. I need to journey to the distant kitchen for another glass of cabernet Sauvignon. Returning with the decisive weapon, I shall save the world. Sorry, Jesus. Love did not make it. We humans love drama and pay our admission tickets with blood.

 

[Mel L]

Oh, Christ! You are too smart for me. I need to journey to the distant kitchen for another glass of cabernet Sauvignon. Returning with the decisive weapon, I shall save the world. Sorry, Jesus. Love did not make it. We humans love drama and pay our admission tickets with blood.

With you on the cab sav! But I'll let you keep the blood and weapons on my journey to inner peace.

 

[Pamela Jo]

Wow, that piece took me on a journey thru the nautilus within my inner nowhere.

It does remind me of a piece I saw on how you can recognise AI pieces. AI tends to overuse certain words due to the people programming them. African English for example because a lot of programmers have been hired in Africa.

 

[Peyton Stafford]

Keeping up with these language fads is an Odyssey and that fad about journeys is a trip.

 

[LJ Beck]

Hum, I agree that "journey" is overused, but I think it's overused because there's nothing else that people want to use to describe particular experiences. Before journeys there were struggles or battles or fights... and I can see how that might not be helpful to view an experience that way, in particular if you're in the middle of it. It's already too exhausting. I think people are tired of fighting. Tired of battling. A journey is neutral ground. It's something someone goes through with some grace. In particular with health struggles (mental or physical) I can see the advantage to finding a less combative way of enduring and hopefully overcoming, but maybe accepting.

Life is ever-changing, unpredictable, and often difficult. Journeying is a more peaceful way of thinking about hardships, or personal growth, or sadness. With a journey, you know you'll keep moving, things will evolve, you won't be stuck in this one spot forever. I think that's good.

What other words do you suggest we use?

 

[KateESal]

Having spent the last few years teaching A level linguistics, this is an area we've explored in our classes.

Lakoff and Johnson's seminal work Metaphors We Live By (first published 1980) investigated the use of metaphors in our language and how we use them to make sense of abstract concepts. The deeper you go, the more fascinating it is. This video does a good job of summarising conceptual metaphors (and also considers the popular "journey" metaphor, discussed in the article.)