Letters: The shallowness of ‘selfie’
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Re “‘Selfie’ snags Oxford title of word of the year,” Nov. 20
Neologisms such as “selfie” and “twerk” are spewed out daily by youngsters whose vocabularies consist of monosyllabic words. The thought process it took to invent a word such as “selfie” involved perhaps as much cogitation as deciding what food item to ingest.
Nonetheless, many linguists argue that language is not deteriorating but rather evolving. The direction of that evolution is never expressed because it seems to be going toward nothingness.
On the other hand, the Oxford English Dictionary, as all dictionaries, must generate new words. Unfortunately, these words demonstrate the mind-set of today’s generation.
Giuseppe Mirelli
Los Angeles
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