How the English language has changed over the decades

A group of young people sat at a table drinking and eating

All languages change over time, and there can be many different reasons for this. The English language is no different – but why has it changed over the decades?

Some of the main influences on the evolution of languages include:

  • The movement of people across countries and continents, for example, migration and, in previous centuries, colonization. For example, English speakers today would probably be comfortable using the Spanish word 'loco' to describe someone who is 'crazy'.
  • Speakers of one language coming into contact with those who speak a different one. No two individuals speak identically: people from different geographical places clearly speak differently and even within the same community there are variations according to a speaker’s age, gender, ethnicity and social and educational background. For example, the word 'courting' has become 'dating'.
  • New vocabulary required for inventions such as transport, domestic appliances and industrial equipment, or for sporting, entertainment, cultural and leisure reasons. For example, the original late 19th century term 'wireless' has become today’s 'radio'.

Due to these influences, a language always embraces new words, expressions and pronunciations as people come across new words and phrases in their day-to-day lives and integrate them into their own speech.

What changes has the English language seen?

As the English language has changed, it’s been easy to pick out words that pass into common usage. Here at app English, we have explored some of these recent changes to the English language. The rise in popularity of internet slang has seen phrases such as 'LOL' (Laugh Out Loud), 'FOMO' (Fear Of Missing Out) and 'fam' (an abbreviated form of family) become firmly embedded in the English language over the past ten years.

Every decade sees new slang terms like these appearing in the English language. And while some words or abbreviations do come from internet or text conversations, others may appear as entirely new words, a new meaning for an existing word, or a word that becomes more generalized than its former meaning, brought about by any one of the reasons above. Decades ago, 'blimey' was a new expression of surprise, but more recently 'woah' is the word in everyday usage.

Sentence structure is of course, another change to the English language. Decades ago, it would have been normal to ask 'Have you a moment?' Now, you might say 'D’you have a sec?' Similarly, 'How do you do?' has become 'How’s it going?' Not only have the sentences been abbreviated, but new words have been introduced to everyday questions.

Connected to this is the replacement of certain words with other, more modern versions. It’s pretty noticeable that words like 'shall' and 'ought' are on the way out, but 'will', 'should' and 'can' are doing just fine.

Other changes can be more subtle. Many verbs can take a compliment with another verb in either the '-ing' form or the 'to' form, for example, 'they liked painting/to paint', 'we tried leaving/to leave', or 'he didn’t bother calling/to call'. Both of these constructions are still used and have been for a long time, but there has been a steady shift over time from the 'to' to the '-ing' compliment.

What do the changes mean?

There are many other changes to the English language – what have you noticed? Have these changes affected your teaching or learning methods?

Most contemporary linguistic commentators accept that change in language, like change in society, is inevitable. Some think that is regrettable, but others recognize it as a reinvigoration of a language, bringing alternatives that allow subtle differences of expression.

Linguist, writer and lecturer David Crystal considers whether 'text speak' is undermining the English language. His response to the naysayers who claim it is damaging the English language is to point out that abbreviations have been around for a long time. While some, such as the ones we discussed above, are new, others, such as the use of 'u' for 'you' and the number 8 as a syllable in 'later', have been around for a century or more. Further to this, research shows that there is a correlation between the ability to use abbreviations and the ability to spell. After all, in order to abbreviate, you have to know which letters to abbreviate.

As with everything, change isn’t necessarily a bad thing and, as the needs of English language users continue to change, so will the language.

Fancy learning more about English? Check out our post 'How do English phrases travel across countries?'.

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    Paying attention on purpose is the skill needed to move out of automatic pilot. As such, practicing mindfulness starts with learning how to pay attention. The more we focus, the more the brain builds strength in the areas involved in this type of concentration - and the easier it becomes to do it automatically. In other words, it becomes a habit to be present.

    In the early years of primary school, a child's brain is developing more quickly than it ever will again. Young minds are in the process of forming their very first habits, and so learning to pay attention on purpose will have a .

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    , experts agree that our attention span varies depending on what we are doing. The more experience we have of how much attention a certain situation needs, the more the brain will adapt and make it easier for us to focus on those situations.

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    For teenagers it is even more important. During adolescence, our brains undergo a unique period of neural development. The brain rapidly streamlines our neural connections to make the brain function as efficiently as possible in adulthood. Like a tree shedding branches, it will get rid of any pathways that are not being used and strengthen up the areas that are being used: use it or lose it. So if teenagers are not actively using their ability to pay conscious attention and spending too much time in automatic pilot mode, through screen use and in periods of high exam stress, the brain won't just not strengthen their capacity to focus; it may make it harder for them to access the ability to pay attention in future.

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    These three mindfulness exercises will help your language students integrate awareness into everyday activities in their school and home lives.

    1. Mindful use of screens and technology

    Screen use is a major culprit of setting the brain into automatic pilot. This is an activity you canpractice in school during computer-based lessons or even ask the students to practise at home.

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    2. Mindful snacking

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    • Bring the snack slowly to your mouth and taste it – notice five different subtle tastes

    3. Counting the breath

    A brilliantly simple exercise to teach the brain to focus attention on one thing for a longerperiod of time. It can be done anywhere and can also have the helpful side effect ofreducing stress through passively slowing down the breath.

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    “Grammar, which knows how to control even kings”- ѴDZè

    When you think of grammar, “rule” is probably the first word that pops into your mind. Certainly the traditional view of grammar is that it’s about the “rules of language”. Indeed, not so long ago, teaching a language meant just teaching grammatical rules, plus perhaps a few vocabulary lists. However, I’m going to suggest that there’s actually no such thing as a grammatical rule.

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    Unfortunately, this doesn’t quite work either: we do say “cleverer”, but we also say “more sober” and “more proper”. And there are problems with some of the one-syllable adjectives too: we say “more real” and “more whole” rather than “realer” or “wholer”. If we modify the rule to fit these exceptions, it will be half a page long, and anyway, if we keep looking we’ll find yet more exceptions. This happens repeatedly in English grammar. Very often, rules seem so full of exceptions that they’re just not all that helpful.

    And there’s another big problem with the “rule approach”: it doesn’t tell you what the structure is actually used for, even with something as obvious as the comparative of adjectives. You might assume that it’s used for comparing things: “My house is smaller than Mary’s”; “John is more attractive than Stephen”. But look at this: “The harder you work, the more money you make.” Or this: “London is getting more and more crowded.” Both sentences use comparative adjectives, but they’re not directly comparing two things.

    What we’re actually looking at here is not a rule but several overlapping patterns, or paradigms to use the correct technical term:

    1. adjective + -er + than
    2. more + adjective + than
    3. parallel comparative adjectives: the + comparative adjective 1 … the + comparative adjective 2
    4. repeated comparative adjective: adjective + -er + and + adjective + -er/more and more + adjective

    This picture is more accurate, but it looks abstract and technical. It’s a long way from what we actually teach these days and the way we teach it, which tends to be organized around learning objectives and measurable outcomes, such as: “By the end of this lesson (or module) my students should be able to compare their own possessions with someone else’s possessions”. So we’re not teaching our students to memorize a rule or even to manipulate a pattern; we’re teaching them to actually do something in the real world. And, of course, we’re teaching it at a level appropriate for the student’s level.

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    • What grammatical forms (patterns) can be used to express this objective?
    • Which ones are appropriate for the level of my students? Are there some that they should already know, or should I teach them in this lesson?
    • What do the forms look like in practice? What would be some good examples?

    Existing grammar textbooks generally don’t provide all this information; in particular, they’re very vague about level. Often they don’t even put grammar structures into specific CEFR levels but into a range, e.g. A1/A2 or A2/B1, and none fully integrates grammar with overall learning objectives.

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    • Is based on the Global Scale of English with its precise gradation of developing learner proficiency
    • Is built on the Council of Europe language syllabuses, linking grammar to CEFR level and to language functions
    • Uses international teams of language experts to review the structures and assess their levels

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    • Search for grammar structures either by GSE or CEFR level
    • Search for grammar structures by keyword or grammatical category/part of speech
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    • Find out which grammar structures support a given learning objective
    • Find out which learning objectives are related to a given grammar structure
    • Get examples for any given grammar structure
    • Get free teaching materials for many of the grammar structures

    Think of it as an open-access resource for anyone teaching English and designing a curriculum.