# Influence of  Television on the language



## PABLO DE SOTO

I would like to know if Television popular expressions have had an influence on your languages.

In Spain a successful Tv soap has made popular expressions like "un poquito de por favor" (incorrect) or "radiopatio".

There are lots of them throughout the time.Some of them only have a short time in the language,but others remain.

What about your languages?


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## anthodocheio

I agree with you. Television always has that kind of influence. Expressions, incorrect or not, but also, what I most have been thinking of is that television helps in making the language homogeneous throughout the country - as we mostly see emisions from the capital.

I believe, this is the issue. What do you think?

(I personally enjoy a lot all this "popular expressions" thing!!!)


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## Hakro

anthodocheio said:


> Television always has that kind of influence. Expressions, incorrect or not, but also, what I most have been thinking of is that television helps in making the language homogeneous throughout the country - as we mostly see emisions from the capital.
> 
> I believe, this is the issue. What do you think?
> 
> (I personally enjoy a lot all this "popular expressions" thing!!!)


In my opinion, decades ago radio helped in making the language homogeneous throughout the country. 

Television has helped in making the stupidity homogeneous throughout the country. At least in Finland.


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## cuchuflete

Hakro said:


> In my opinion, decades ago radio helped in making the language homogeneous throughout the country.
> 
> Television has helped in making the stupidity homogeneous throughout the country. At least in Finland.



Hakro makes an excellent point.  At one time in the U.S., most homes had radios, and not televisions.  Radio announcers were known for their superb diction and grammar.  Radio did help
homogeneity to some extent.


Then came the early decades of television.  Three or four major networks had majority market share, and as the news departments became more commercial, the clear speech and grammar disappeared, and programs mostly strove to emulate and pander to the lowest common denominator.  Whatever homogenization may have occured, it was in pronunciation, and it was not an uplifting thing for the language...just sameness.

Then came cable, with hundreds of channels, and then the internet.  I really doubt that TV any longer has much influence on speech patterns.  Others will disagree.  That is welcome.

Make my day!**





**Dirty Harry was in films before he made it to TV.


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## lazarus1907

Hakro said:


> In my opinion, decades ago radio helped in making the language homogeneous throughout the country.
> 
> Television has helped in making the stupidity homogeneous throughout the country. At least in Finland.


It must be an international phenomenon, because it is the same in Spain. Actually, the new trend on TV is to emphasize regional accents and speak "naturally". (i.e. with bad accent, grammatical errors,...)


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## lallitapz

hello everyone!
some times i noticed that some expressions in spanish are literally translated from english. for example, today i was watching "friends" and i was focusing on the word _carinho_, which i presume it traslates _darling_. well, carinho doesn't seem to be so used in spanish as much as darling is in english, even though spaniards are starting to use more expression like that.
am i wrong?
hope to continue this debate.
valentina

ps: please, correct any mistake!


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## Alxmrphi

Whenever I hear "axed" in American TV shows I cringe, nails into the couch and let it just pain my head for a few seconds while I pray that through television it doesn't make anyone else want to say it or it ever to become acceptable..

It drives me mad! I hate it! Why the hell "axed" ?!?!? AHHHHHHH
Anyway, yes I agree, I think through Television, horrible acts of grammar have been seen as 'ok' because 'someone from the TV' said it.



> Then came cable, with hundreds of channels, and then the internet. I really doubt that TV any longer has much influence on speech patterns. Others will disagree. That is welcome.



I see your point from little cable channels it doesn't have a big influence, but are you talking about very popular channels, just look what happened with "Emboldened" a few weeks back in America, words catch on.


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## Hakro

Today, especially in the countries (like Finland) where the translations are not dubbed but written in undertitles, there's never enough space for a proper translation.

Another problem is 1) the price level and 2) the schedules of the translation jobs for TV. I've been asked to do these jobs but I said no, I'm not stupid. (I don't mean that the TV translators are stupid, maybe they just don't have alternatives, like I had. The fact still is that TV cant get best translators in these circumstances.) Doing a translation "in no time" and getting some "peanuts" for it doesn't make sense.

I think that the TV language will be a huge problem in near future, at least in the non-english countries.


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## Paulfromitaly

On Italian TV networks every television program is dubbed in Italian, so foreign languages have actually no impact on our language, whereas I've noticed that American movies, cartoons and Tv series do influence the British audience:  I heard children pronounce words with a typical American accent and use expressions which their parents would never ever use, just because they heard it on Tv.


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## Victoria32

Paulfromitaly said:


> On Italian TV networks every television program is dubbed in Italian, so foreign languages have actually no impact on our language, whereas I've noticed that American movies, cartoons and Tv series do influence the British audience:  I heard children pronounce words with a typical American accent and use expressions which their parents would never ever use, just because they heard it on TV..


Which is exactly what happens here! (New Zealand.) Children talk broad American, adults use American lexis, even grammar... (We have had TV here in the country since 1959 (though in our family it was years later) and 85% of our programming is and always has been American.)
I worked at an Intermediate school in 1996, and could identify the kids whose babysitter was the TV... I worked in the school library, where hearing  and vision tests were being conducted. 85% of the children (none of the Asian or Middle Eastern immigrants, but 99% of the New Zealanders recited the alphabet from the chart and said '*Zee*' for the last letter of the alphabet instead of *Zed*. Of course 11 years later it is much worse. A rather dim woman in my son's course at University was insistent the other night that a timetable is a 'sked-yool', and not a 'shed-yool' as we always used to say... 

Vicky


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## lallitapz

uhm.. i'm sorry.. what does "axed" mean?


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## lallitapz

i'd like to point out a positive contribution that TV brought to my country (italy). almost 60 yrs ago southerns and northerns could not understand each other very well. tv helped italians speak italian or, at least, a language understood by - almost- everyone.


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## Lombard Beige

lallitapz said:


> ... carinho doesn't seem to be so used in spanish as much as darling is in english, ...



My wife calls me "carinho" all the time, but she's Galician ... Also "Cheinho", as she calls me "Che" (no political overtones) as a nickname.

regards


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## Frank06

Hi,


Alex_Murphy said:


> Whenever I hear "axed" in American TV shows I cringe, nails into the couch and let it just pain my head for a few seconds while I pray that through television it doesn't make anyone else want to say it or it ever to become acceptable.. It drives me mad! I hate it! Why the hell "axed" ?!?!? AHHHHHHH
> Anyway, yes I agree, I think through Television, horrible acts of grammar have been seen as 'ok' because 'someone from the TV' said it.



I wonder how long those expressions 'promoted' by tv programmes last (longer than the tv season?) and in how far they have a profound influence, rather than a very superfluous one.

The fun part here is that at a certain period, there must have been people who cringed when hearing 'asked'. So, tv or not, there is nothing new under the sun. It might come as a shock, but language does change.
A last question: why are people so scared of language in action, i.e. constantly changing, and why do they hold tight there precious grammar books which are full of expressions and constructions which at a given moment made people cringe.

Groetjes,

Frank


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## Victoria32

Frank06 said:


> Hi,
> 
> 
> I wonder how long those expressions 'promoted' by tv programmes last (longer than the tv season?) and in how far they have a profound influence, rather than a very superfluous one.
> 
> The fun part here is that at a certain period, there must have been people who cringed when hearing 'asked'. So, tv or not, there is nothing new under the sun. It might come as a shock, but language does change.
> A last question: why are people so scared of language in action, i.e. constantly changing, and why do they hold tight there precious grammar books which are full of expressions and constructions which at a given moment made people cringe.
> 
> Groetjes,
> 
> Frank


However, 'axed' is in a class of its own for horror! 

Another example here is 'wicked', pronounced in the New Zealand accent (heavily influenced by the Scots as "wuc-ked"... In 1991, it was teen slang for "hip and happenin'" as David Letterman would say..Now it has become fossilised by advertisers who bang on about "wicked summer deals". Slang isn't supposed to be fossilised and still used 16 years later by middle-aged saddos in advertising agencies! 

Vicky


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## Paulfromitaly

TV should help us improve our language by learning new expressions and by enriching our vocabulary, rather than change the way we speak or change our accent..


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## maxiogee

I don't think catchphrases really influence the language - they enter it, enjoy a brief spell in the sun and pass through into a twilight area where only the saddos (of any age, not just 'middle~') hang onto them beyond their shelf-life.

What television does do to language is begin to put markers on words which may have had regional or class-based pronunciations and create a somewhat standard for 'correct' pronunciation - this may not always be the linguistically correct pronunciation as listed in dictionaries, but might be the most widely used one.
Television (and radio in its day) can also kill off local dialect words, as they become to be seen as not being the 'right' word for an item/action.

But, I think this is just how language develops, and television is possibly only speeding up a pre-existing process. Words fall into disuse continually as they lose their specialness and new ones arise which cover aspects of things which existing words don't really cater for. It's a living thing, language, and it needs to change or it all dies. I'm probably speaking, largely, the same language as my great-great-grandfather, but he'd have had a range of words which I would never need to use and I'll have ones which weren't even required in his day.


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## Etcetera

Hakro said:


> In my opinion, decades ago radio helped in making the language homogeneous throughout the country.
> 
> Television has helped in making the stupidity homogeneous throughout the country. At least in Finland.


As well as in Russia. 
What really pisses me off is that no one on the TV is paying any attention to the way they speak. It's really awful.


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## sound shift

I am .. like .. sure that the .. like .. vogue for using _like _comes from television - in the .. like .. UK, at least.


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## jmx

lazarus1907 said:


> It must be an international phenomenon, because it is the same in Spain. Actually, the new trend on TV is to emphasize regional accents


 I fail to hear any regional accent on TV, other than Madrid accent. If it weren't for the Fago murder, I wouldn't have heard aragonese accent on TV for many years.


lazarus1907 said:


> ... and speak "naturally". (i.e. with bad accent, grammatical errors,...)


I suppose "bad accent" means "accent different from mine" and "grammatical errors" means "grammar not like mine".


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## Lombard Beige

jmartins said:


> ... I fail to hear any regional accent on TV, other than Madrid accent. ...



The woman who does “Corazón, Corazón” on TVE Internacional has a Canaries Island accent ...

regards


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## PABLO DE SOTO

I think regional accents on Tv is a good thing,so people can be aware of the diversity of their own language in their own country.
I hate to watch certain andalusians trying to hide their accent in order to look "purer".


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## Poetic Device

Hakro said:


> Television has helped in making the stupidity homogeneous throughout the country. At least in Finland.


 
YES!


> Today, especially in the countries (like Finland) where the translations are not dubbed but written in undertitles, there's never enough space for a proper translation.


 
Yes, but I have noticed that it does not have to be a translation to have that problem.  If i go and put English subtitles on my English movie, the one says something completely different from the other.


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## etornudo

Alex_Murphy said:


> Whenever I hear "axed" in American TV shows I cringe, nails into the couch and let it just pain my head for a few seconds while I pray that through television it doesn't make anyone else want to say it or it ever to become acceptable..



I don't think TV affects what is considered "correct" by grammarians one way or the other. TV _reflects _it doesn't _guide_ linguistic trends. Through time, the rules change if enough people, especially enough educated people, start saying something.


A side note:

This sentence was written in the 15th century by William Caxton, England's first printer:

*And one of theym named Sheffelde, a mercer,   cam in-to an hows and axed for mete ; and specyally he axyed **after eggys   ; and the goode wyf answerde, that she coude speke no frenshe.

*If you look up "ask" in the dictionary you will find that there were two forms in Old English: _āscian _and_ āxian. _So it's not a "new" trend being spread by TV.*

*


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## jmx

PABLO DE SOTO said:


> I think regional accents on Tv is a good thing,so people can be aware of the diversity of their own language in their own country.


   


PABLO DE SOTO said:


> I hate to watch certain andalusians trying to hide their accent in order to look "purer".


To be fair, one has to consider that speaking with regional accent can be dangerous for a professional of radio or TV. At some point, regional accents were officially forbidden, for example in TVE. Maybe they are no longer forbidden, but let's not forget that some rules disappear from the "official" books, only to become "unofficial", and still binding in practice.


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## Dr. Quizá

PABLO DE SOTO said:


> I would like to know if Television popular expressions have had an influence on your languages.
> 
> In Spain a successful Tv soap has made popular expressions like "un poquito de por favor" (incorrect) or "radiopatio".
> 
> There are lots of them throughout the time.Some of them only have a short time in the language,but others remain.
> 
> What about your languages?



I see no problem in "un poquito de por favor". It may not be grammatically orthodox, but you can read that kind of non-standard structure in any literary work. I also find neologisms such as "radiopatio" to be funny and creative.





lazarus1907 said:


> It must be an international phenomenon, because it is the same in Spain. Actually, the new trend on TV is to emphasize regional accents and speak "naturally". (i.e. with bad accent, grammatical errors,...)



Well, I strongly disagree. You won't hear any but neutral accent in programs such as "Aquí no hay quien viva" (the soap opera Mr. De Soto refered) unless it is a character feature. Furthermore, the Juan Cuesta character has an impressive diction since he's pedantic and performed by a well known voice actor. I've just seen a couple sketches in You Tube and all characters had an clearly over average diction, although I heard some _leísmo_ in one of them, but that's an error the staff may haven't noticed during filming.


In Spanish TV you only hear regional accents if the speaker has _a good reason_ to feature it. Because of this and the existing cliches, if the speaker has that accent you probably couldn't help to be distracted to think about why that guy is emphasizedly from that specific place.

Of course I'm talking about "normal" TV, not trash TV.



The Canary woman in "Corazón, corazón" Lombard Beige said was a national news reporter who was removed due her heavy accent, AFAIK.




lallitapz said:


> hello everyone!
> some times i noticed that some expressions in spanish are literally translated from english. for example, today i was watching "friends" and i was focusing on the word _carinho_, which i presume it traslates _darling_. well, carinho doesn't seem to be so used in spanish as much as darling is in english, even though spaniards are starting to use more expression like that.
> am i wrong?
> hope to continue this debate.
> valentina
> 
> ps: please, correct any mistake!



There's nothing strange nor new in that use of "cariño". I've been hearing it from women all my life (mostly not towards me   ).


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## TimLA

cuchuflete said:


> Make my day!


 
OK,

It's a good thing that we have the WR forum to exchange ideas, otherwise we'd all be saying beam me up, there's no intelligent life down here. But, while squeezing the Charmin, and typing in many languages, and wondering if yo quiero Taco Bell for dinner, we can all wonder where's the beef in terms of the future of our cultures.

Oooops...static.....D'oh....can you hear me now?.
Yes? Oh, excellent....yabba-dabba-do!!!

Sorry, I thought I heard someone say "I never had sex with that Gecko"...but I digress.

In many of the forums we learn much about each others language, cultures and ways to insult people such as "up your nose with a rubber hose". But our ultimate goal on this site is to git-r-dunn, and understand that the spin stops here, with the moderators - and that's the truththththt.

No, no effect of TV on AE - none whatsoever.
And that's the way it is...


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## Miniola

Television may have influenced some sentence rhythms in British English.

In England and Northern Ireland (I don't know about other places using British English) some young people, perhaps up to their 30s, raise the pitch of their voice at the end of almost every sentence as if they were asking a question. 

It was confusing when I first heard it. When I caught myself doing it I realised it how common it had become, but I am cured now.  

Some Australian soap operas have been popular in the British Isles for some years. This way of speaking was "blamed" on this. A minority say it originated from the British born children of immigrants from India and Pakistan. They say these children superimposed the "tune" of their parents' language onto their their native language. 

I think the soap opera theory is more likely to be true, but am not convinced.


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## Miniola

On a previous point about "axed", I have no problem with it. Even if written, the context would make a clear distinction between "questioned" and "cut with an ax/e, chopped, cut off, stopped." It's the way some Black Englishes say "asked".

Thank you, etornudo, for the Caxton reference. That makes "axed" respectable.  I shall use this reference again.


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## loladamore

etornudo said:


> This sentence was written in the 15th century by William Caxton, England's first printer:
> 
> *And one of theym named Sheffelde, a mercer, cam in-to an hows and axed for mete ; and specyally he axyed **after eggys ; and the goode wyf answerde, that she coude speke no frenshe.*


 
I don't know much else about Caxton, but he also said that *certaynly it is harde to playse every man by cause of dyversitie & chaunge of langage*.
 
Television probably does influence the way we speak, just as other forms of popular entertainment have done over the centuries. That Shakespeare geezer has a lot to answer for; he set down lots of silly phrases we still use now, and he had terrible spelling, sometimes spelling the same word 2 or 3 different ways in the same play. Shocking. 
 
He borrowed foreign words  , and I bet he even had actors represent regional accents in his plays. AND he had men dressing up as women pretending to be women dressed as men - can you believe the cheek! Dreadful behaviour.
 
I wonder what kind of programmes Shakespeare would have created had he written for TV? 
 
I would be grateful if anyone could tell me where I can find the full ‘Laments for a Dying Language’ (Ogden Nash). I only have this delightful fragment:
 
Coin brassy words at will, debase the coinage;
We’re in an if-you-cannot-lick-them-join age,
A slovenliness provides its own excuse age,
Where usage overnight condones misusage.
Farewell, farewell to my beloved language,
Once English, now a vile orangutanguage.
 
​​


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## cuchuflete

Thanks Tim,
I recognize some, but far from all, of the blue phrases.  Many had their moment in the sun, and are more than a little faded today.  I'm sure that in their hayday, Fibber Magee and Molly, and the Arthur Godfrey Show generated similar linguistic burps.  The over 75 generation might have some nostalgic feelings for them, but they are not part of the lexicon.  

Try asking a college student today what "Read my lips. No new taxes" is all about.  Once upon a time, Maynard G. Krebs of Dobie Gillis fame, made the word "Work!?" a popular term of astonishment and a way to say "No way!".  That was good for a decade or so.  No it's mostly forgotten.  

I haven't seen TV in about three years.  Maybe that explains why I don't recognize so many of the  phrases you have presented, as if they were well known to one and all.

Cheers,
cuchu
Who was voted off the island for not watching TV.  




TimLA said:


> OK,
> 
> It's a good thing that we have the WR forum to exchange ideas, otherwise we'd all be saying beam me up, there's no intelligent life down here. But, while squeezing the Charmin, and typing in many languages, and wondering if yo quiero Taco Bell for dinner, we can all wonder where's the beef in terms of the future of our cultures.
> 
> Oooops...static.....D'oh....can you hear me now?.
> Yes? Oh, excellent....yabba-dabba-do!!!
> 
> Sorry, I thought I heard someone say "I never had sex with that Gecko"...but I digress.
> 
> In many of the forums we learn much about each others language, cultures and ways to insult people such as "up your nose with a rubber hose". But our ultimate goal on this site is to git-r-dunn, and understand that the spin stops here, with the moderators - and that's the truththththt.
> 
> No, no effect of TV on AE - none whatsoever.
> And that's the way it is...


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## TimLA

cuchuflete said:


> Cheers,
> cuchu
> Who was voted off the island for not watching TV.


 
For posterity, and those far younger than I:

It's a good thing - Martha Stewart (before the horizonal stripes)
beam me up, there's no intelligent life down here - Star Trek
squeezing the Charmin
yo quiero Taco Bell (facil)
Where's the beef? - Wendy's 1980's
D'oh - Homer Simpson
can you hear me now? - Verizon
yabba-dabba-do - Flintstones (1960's-1990's)
I never had sex with that Gecko - Bill Clinton + GEICO
up your nose with a rubber hose - Welcome Back, Kotter
git-r-dunn,- Larry the Cable guy
the spin stops here - Fox News
and that's the truththththt - Lilly Tomlin, Laugh-in
And that's the way it is... - Walter Cronkite


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