Innovative Usage Thread

[Salmoneus]

Today I heard "YouTube" as a count noun meaning "video available on YouTube". (E.g. "There's a YouTube you can watch.")

Interesting. I've only heard "a Youtube" to mean "a Youtube channel". I think I'd also be ok, though, with it meaning a youtube video providing that the video was of an educational nature.


-----

Recently, noted fantasy author of yore, J.V. Jones, who's returning to writing to finish off her saga, posted a teaser for the new book, with a painting, over which was a tagline: "She'd hadn't meant to [do something I can't remember what it was]".

The line wasn't in the extract she posted, so I don't know if it appears in her novel, or is just something she made on the spur of the moment. But the idea that a relatively high-profile novelist is using this as part of a commercial marketing plan makes this an unusually prominent place to find a novelty!

Googling shows me that the phrase "she'd hadn't" appears mostly in novels written by american women in the last five years or so, although of course Google isn't a particularly objective scientific instrument in this regard.


Fascinating, though. Because it's not just a random weird thing, it seems specifically to be a step in the evolution of English toward synthesis.

[alynnidalar]

Today I heard "YouTube" as a count noun meaning "video available on YouTube". (E.g. "There's a YouTube you can watch.")

Interesting. I've only heard "a Youtube" to mean "a Youtube channel". I think I'd also be ok, though, with it meaning a youtube video providing that the video was of an educational nature.

My mom does this! She also uses the verb "to Youtube" as in "to look up a video on Youtube", although I've heard other people use that as well.

She'll say things like "I was watching a Youtube with [content of video]" or "I Youtubed the song and listened to it".

[mèþru]

The only non-standard usage I've ever heard or seen is YouTube as a verb meaning "to upload on YouTube" or "(the) YouTubes" in humour. Plus a sketch where someone sees an ad for YouTube and tries to buy "one YouTube" only to be told that the company is worth thousands of millions or something (it's been years so I don't remember it exactly).

[Nerulent]

My mom does this! She also uses the verb "to Youtube" as in "to look up a video on Youtube", although I've heard other people use that as well.

She'll say things like "I was watching a Youtube with [content of video]" or "I Youtubed the song and listened to it".

The verbal usage is fairly common here - I definitely say this. It's got a pretty clear analogy in 'to google'. I haven't heard it as a noun like that, but it doesn't feel too unnatural at all.

[alynnidalar]

It [the verbal usage] definitely seems to be increasingly widespread.

[zyxw59]

It occurs to me that the verb usage of "Youtube" with the meaning of watching or searching for a video on Youtube contrasts with the noun "Youtuber", which I've only ever seen used to refer to people who make videos on Youtube.

[Linguoboy]

Does anyone else have /wʌnt/ for went?

I think this might be related to my pin-pen merger, but it's hard to say because I can't think of any other words where I have /ɛ/ > [ʌ].

[Boşkoventi]

Does anyone else have /wʌnt/ for went?

I think this might be related to my pin-pen merger, but it's hard to say because I can't think of any other words where I have /ɛ/ > [ʌ].

What about "twenty"? [twʌɾ̃i] ~ [tʃwʌɾ̃i] seems fairly common.

[Linguoboy]

What about "twenty"? [twʌɾ̃i] ~ [tʃwʌɾ̃i] seems fairly common.

With my colloquial simplification of homoorganic medial clusters, this becomes [twʌni].

[Zaarin]

Does anyone else have /wʌnt/ for went?

I think this might be related to my pin-pen merger, but it's hard to say because I can't think of any other words where I have /ɛ/ > [ʌ].

I don't, but a speaker in a file I'm transcribing seems to have a rather broad (but not universal) /ɛ/ > [ʌ]. No idea where he's from, I'm afraid, though I'd peg his accent as "vaguely Midwestern" if pressed.

[Travis B.]

Does anyone else have /wʌnt/ for went?

I think this might be related to my pin-pen merger, but it's hard to say because I can't think of any other words where I have /ɛ/ > [ʌ].

What about "twenty"? [twʌɾ̃i] ~ [tʃwʌɾ̃i] seems fairly common.

In the dialect here it is normal to have [ˈtʲʰwʌ̃ɾ̃i(ː)]~[tʲʰwʌ̃i̯], and some people have [ˈtɕʰwʌ̃ɾ̃i(ː)]~[tɕʰwʌ̃i̯].

[Esneirra973]

Does anyone else have /wʌnt/ for went?

I think this might be related to my pin-pen merger, but it's hard to say because I can't think of any other words where I have /ɛ/ > [ʌ].

What about "twenty"? [twʌɾ̃i] ~ [tʃwʌɾ̃i] seems fairly common.

In the dialect here it is normal to have [ˈtʲʰwʌ̃ɾ̃i(ː)]~[tʲʰwʌ̃i̯], and some people have [ˈtɕʰwʌ̃ɾ̃i(ː)]~[tɕʰwʌ̃i̯].

In my dialect, it's [tʰwɛni].

[Travis B.]

When I was out at the Shedd Aquarium with my sister and much of our immediate family this weekend, I specifically recall hearing my sister pronounce to as a very clear [tɕʰʉ̯uː], with very strong affrication and palatalization.

[Hyolobrika]

The other day I saw on Reddit someone say "wanna talks" presumably for "wants to talk" from "wanna" as a contraction of "wants to" in front of verb forms without the s. "Wanna" seems to have become an adverb.

Also I've just thought of something, do you or anything you read capitalise the first letter of a quote within a sentence if it's the first thing in the sentence?

[Zaarin]

The other day I saw on Reddit someone say "wanna talks" presumably for "wants to talk" from "wanna" as a contraction of "wants to" in front of verb forms without the s. "Wanna" seems to have become an adverb.

Without more context, this usage looks perfectly normal to me, a simple auxiliary + infinitive construct...

Also I've just thought of something, do you or anything you read capitalise the first letter of a quote within a sentence if it's the first thing in the sentence?

Are you asking about capitalizing the first word of a quote that is not capitalized in the original quote? Most style guides would prescribe that, with a bracket around the capital letter: "[Y]es." And of course in dialogue the first word of a sentence is always capitalized.

[Dē Graut Bʉr]

The other day I saw on Reddit someone say "wanna talks" presumably for "wants to talk" from "wanna" as a contraction of "wants to" in front of verb forms without the s. "Wanna" seems to have become an adverb.

Without more context, this usage looks perfectly normal to me, a simple auxiliary + infinitive construct...

"Wanna talks".

[Xwtek]

Since I am not a native English speaker, I have difficulty between /æ/ and /ɛ/. To make the sound more distinct, I pronounce /æ/ as /ɛ˷/. The similiar things happen for /ɪ˷/ and /ʊ˷/, except it is also pronounced shorter than /i/ and /u/. Now the contrast is on voicing on vowel, that can be pronounced easier.

[bbbosborne]

i hope this is the right thread: once i was doing a school assigment really quickly and the person next to me asked if i was just "copy and pasting." i had no electronics near me, all i had was a textbook. i had absolutely no idea what she was asking, but then she added "from the book" to her question. has anyone else heard someone use the phrase "copy and paste" outside of the electronic environment?

[Ares Land]

i hope this is the right thread: once i was doing a school assigment really quickly and the person next to me asked if i was just "copy and pasting." i had no electronics near me, all i had was a textbook. i had absolutely no idea what she was asking, but then she added "from the book" to her question. has anyone else heard someone use the phrase "copy and paste" outside of the electronic environment?

Yes. I had a math teacher that described reusing the same bits of reasoning in demonstrations as "copy and paste".

[Ryusenshi]

I've been exchanging messages with an eBay seller from Germany, and he always capitalizes "You". Certainly a weird transfer from his native language, when the formal second person pronoun "Sie" is always capitalized.