I enjoy reading books (that’s why I’m seeing this post on r/books). I read more old books than new ones, for a few reasons: 1) I’m cheap and I can read old public-domain books for free on Project Gutenberg without pirating; 2) it feels like less risk of a bad time if I’m reading a “classic” book that’s widely praised; 3) I love reading other people’s reviews or reactions to a book after I’ve finished it, and widely-read old books have more reviews; 4) I have a lot of writing pet peeves that new books hit worse than old books; and 5) I grew up reading old books so the old-timey writing feels more normal to me in a book.
The language in new books is definitely different, but it’s different in different ways depending on the genre and where the author started writing (the ones who started with fanfiction use more italics for example).
And the change in language IS definitely accelerating because of the Internet. New slang words are outdated in less than a year. But then a lot of slang in the past might have been just as short-lived and we wouldn’t know about it because there wasn’t so much recording of everything then.
“Inserting images in the pages” is great and not new-fangled, I love illustrations. But the Internet words and emojis - they can have a place in a book that’s talking about the Internet, but I don’t want to see them otherwise. I don’t know if it’s an objectively negative change or if I just feel negative about it. I think old books tended more to “clean up” their language and avoid confusing local slang and words that were likely to be dated in a few years - but then again, there are good old books that get really deep into a local dialect, like The Yearling by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings, and I really like when a book dives into something specific like that. Internet slang is annoying to me personally because I’m on the Internet too much and when I read a book I want a break.
Sure! Good luck on your project.
I’m 25.
I work in a factory.
I enjoy reading books (that’s why I’m seeing this post on r/books). I read more old books than new ones, for a few reasons: 1) I’m cheap and I can read old public-domain books for free on Project Gutenberg without pirating; 2) it feels like less risk of a bad time if I’m reading a “classic” book that’s widely praised; 3) I love reading other people’s reviews or reactions to a book after I’ve finished it, and widely-read old books have more reviews; 4) I have a lot of writing pet peeves that new books hit worse than old books; and 5) I grew up reading old books so the old-timey writing feels more normal to me in a book.
The language in new books is definitely different, but it’s different in different ways depending on the genre and where the author started writing (the ones who started with fanfiction use more italics for example).
And the change in language IS definitely accelerating because of the Internet. New slang words are outdated in less than a year. But then a lot of slang in the past might have been just as short-lived and we wouldn’t know about it because there wasn’t so much recording of everything then.
“Inserting images in the pages” is great and not new-fangled, I love illustrations. But the Internet words and emojis - they can have a place in a book that’s talking about the Internet, but I don’t want to see them otherwise. I don’t know if it’s an objectively negative change or if I just feel negative about it. I think old books tended more to “clean up” their language and avoid confusing local slang and words that were likely to be dated in a few years - but then again, there are good old books that get really deep into a local dialect, like The Yearling by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings, and I really like when a book dives into something specific like that. Internet slang is annoying to me personally because I’m on the Internet too much and when I read a book I want a break.