Angus Grieve-Smith

I just got back from [the American Association for Corpus Linguistics
conference](https://apling.engl.iastate.edu/conferences/aacl2016/){target="_blank"}
in Ames, Iowa, and I'm calling the Word of the Year: for 2016 it will be
**said**.

> hoseok literally did a one handed backflip and all people are talking
> about is the flash of his abs at the end of said backflip i\'m tired
>
> --- ? (@hoseokdetails) [September 25,
> 2016](https://twitter.com/hoseokdetails/status/780094919792857088)

You may think you know **said**. It's the past participle of **say**.
You've said it yourself many times. What's so special about it?

What's special was revealed by [Jordan
Smith](https://www.linkedin.com/in/tjordans){target="_blank"}, a
graduate student at Iowa State, in his presentation on Saturday
afternoon. **said** is becoming a determiner. It is grammaticizing.

In addition to its participial use ("once the words were said") you've
probably seen **said** used as an attributive adjective ("the said
property"). It indicates that the noun it modifies refers to a person,
place or thing that has been mentioned recently, with the same noun, and
that the speaker/writer expects it to be active in the hearer/reader's
memory.

> on the said Property on the understanding that they (the Southern
> Baptist Convention) will pay the sum of One Shilling annually as rent.
> /8
>
> --- Mpa Ugoeze (@Uzochi_O) [June 27,
> 2016](https://twitter.com/Uzochi_O/status/747381810032676864)

Attributive **said** is strongly associated with legal documents, as in
its first recorded use in the English Parliament in 1327. The [*Oxford
English
Dictionary*](http://www.oed.com/view/Entry/169800){target="_blank"}
reports that **said** was used outside of legal contexts as early as
1973, in the English sitcom Steptoe and Son. In this context it was
clearly a joke: a word that evoked law courts used in a lower-class
colloquial context.

Jordan Smith examined uses of **said** in [the Corpus of Contemporary
American English](http://corpus.byu.edu/coca/){target="_blank"} (COCA)
and found that attributive **said** has increasingly been used without
**the** for several years now, and outside the legal domain. He observes
that syntactic changes and increased frequency have been named by
linguists like Joan Bybee as harbingers of grammaticization.

Grammaticization (also known as grammaticalization; search for both) is
when an ordinary lexical item (like a noun, verb or adjective, or even a
phrase) becomes a grammatical item (like a pronoun, preposition or
auxiliary verb). For example, **while** is a noun meaning a period of
time, but it was grammaticized to a conjunction indicating simultaneity.
**Used** is an adjective meaning accustomed, as in "I was used to being
lonely," but has also become part of an auxiliary indicating habitual
aspect as in "I used to be lonely."

Jordan is suggesting that **said** is no longer just a verb or even an
adjective, it's our newest determiner in English. Determiners are an
exclusive club of short words that modify nouns. They include articles
like **an** and **the**, but also demonstratives like **these** and
quantifiers like **several**.

Noun phrases without a determiner tend to refer to generic categories,
as I have been doing with phrases like **legal documents** and
**grammaticization**. That is clearly not what is going on with **said
girlfriend**. Noun phrases with **said** refer to a specific item or
group of items, in some sense even more so than noun phrases with
**the**.

Thanks to the wireless Internet at the AACL, I began searching for **of
said** on Twitter, and found a ton of examples. There are plenty for
**in said** examples as well.

> i saw my future husband in a halloween store yesterday but then i lost
> him in said halloween store :(
>
> --- tra\$hpanda (@rinicolex) [October 2,
> 2016](https://twitter.com/rinicolex/status/782549010158587905)

It's not just happening in English. The analogous French **ledit** is
also used outside the legal domain. Its reanalysis is a bit different,
since it incorporates the article rather than replacing it. Like most
noun modifiers in French it is inflected for gender and number. I
haven't found anything similar for Spanish.

> Donc après nous avoir fait changer de voie pour le train suivant, la
> sncf fait en sorte que ledit train soit en retard.
>
> --- Angélique ? (@xTruelove_way) [September 22,
> 2016](https://twitter.com/xTruelove_way/status/779008045925986304)

In 2013 the American Dialect Society chose **because** as [its Word of
the
Year](http://www.americandialect.org/because-is-the-2013-word-of-the-year){target="_blank"}.
**Because** is already a conjunction, having grammaticized from the noun
**cause**, but it has been reanalyzed again into a preposition, as in
**because science**. Some theorists consider this to be a further step
in grammaticization. And here is a twenty-first century prepositional
phrase for you, folks: **because** (P) **said** (Det) **relationship**
(N).

> I let myself develop bad habits because said relationship. Now I just
> have to have some serious discipline to get back to where I want to be
>
> --- ?? (@fagmiester) [September 15,
> 2016](https://twitter.com/fagmiester/status/776569280674476032)

After Jordan's presentation it struck me that **said** is an excellent
candidate for the 2016 Word of the year. And if the ADS isn't
interested, maybe another organization like the International Cognitive
Linguistics Association, can sponsor a Grammaticization of the Year.


I just got back from the American Association for Corpus Linguistics conference in Ames, Iowa, and I’m calling the Word of the Year: for 2016 it will be
<strong>
 said
</strong>
.  You may think you know
<strong>
 said
</strong>
. It’s the past participle of
<strong>
 say
</strong>
. You’ve said it yourself many times.

“Said” for 2016 Word of the Year

<p>I think it was an important move for linguists to divorce our field from aesthetics.  There can be a science of taste, but science itself is not the arbiter of taste.  It is not the place of linguists to judge accents or languages.  Just as biologists study animals and plants that many people consider repugnant, linguists may study words and phrases that alarm or disgust people.</p>
<p>That said, objectivity doesn’t mean you have to like everything.  Linguists have the right to our own personal tastes about languages.  For example, I think German can sound very cool at times, but there are other linguists who disagree with me, and that’s okay.</p>
<h2>Pittsburgh</h2>
<p>The Pittsburgh dialect, with its Northern Cities-shifted vowels, is pleasant enough, but what I really love about it is its grammar.  They have their own second person plural pronoun, “yinz,” from “you ones” – it’s like our “you guys,” but shorter.  (Some of my neighbors have “youse,” but I never heard it in my family.)  Their &#8220;an &#8216;at&#8221; corresponds to our “and stuff.”</p>
<p>The best thing about the Pittsburgh dialect, though, is that they drop the useless “to be” from certain phrases, notably “that coat needs washed.”  When I visited Pittsburgh, the friendly bus driver was chatting with me on the way in from the airport.  We passed a bus stop with some people sitting on a bench, and she said, “Oh, they don’t want picked up.”  I wish my dialect had that!  Who needs that &#8220;to be,&#8221; anyway?</p>
<p><iframe loading="lazy" width="420" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/DssmWdmgLGw" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe></p>
<p>Musician and comedian Mark Eddie, a native of nearby Steubenville, Ohio, plays up all these features of the Pittsburgh dialect <em>except</em> the “needs washed” construction in an adaptation of &#8220;Downtown,&#8221; the song made famous by Petula Clark.  There are a couple of objectionable lyrics – objectifying &#8220;Shadyside chicks&#8221; and referring to transgender people as &#8220;trannies&#8221; – but beyond those you see that there&#8217;s nothing mean in his teasing; you hear a real affection for Pittsburgh and its dialect.</p>
<p>This is part 4 of a series where I say nice things about all of the accents that Gawker&#8217;s Dayna Evans nominated for &#8220;America&#8217;s Ugliest Accent.&#8221;  Previously: <a href="https://www.grieve-smith.com/blog/2014/10/americas-loveliest-accents-new-york/" title="America’s Loveliest Accents: New York">New York City</a>.  Nextly: <a href="https://www.grieve-smith.com/blog/2014/10/philadelphia/" title="America’s Loveliest Accents: Philadelphia">Philadelphia</a>.</p>


I think it was an important move for linguists to divorce our field from
aesthetics. There can be a science of taste, but science itself is not
the arbiter of taste. It is not the place of linguists to judge accents
or languages. Just as biologists study animals and plants that many
people consider repugnant, linguists may study words and phrases that
alarm or disgust people.

That said, objectivity doesn't mean you have to like everything.
Linguists have the right to our own personal tastes about languages. For
example, I think German can sound very cool at times, but there are
other linguists who disagree with me, and that's okay.

## Pittsburgh

The Pittsburgh dialect, with its Northern Cities-shifted vowels, is
pleasant enough, but what I really love about it is its grammar. They
have their own second person plural pronoun, "yinz," from "you ones" --
it's like our "you guys," but shorter. (Some of my neighbors have
"youse," but I never heard it in my family.) Their "an 'at" corresponds
to our "and stuff."

The best thing about the Pittsburgh dialect, though, is that they drop
the useless "to be" from certain phrases, notably "that coat needs
washed." When I visited Pittsburgh, the friendly bus driver was chatting
with me on the way in from the airport. We passed a bus stop with some
people sitting on a bench, and she said, "Oh, they don't want picked
up." I wish my dialect had that! Who needs that "to be," anyway?

Musician and comedian Mark Eddie, a native of nearby Steubenville, Ohio,
plays up all these features of the Pittsburgh dialect *except* the
"needs washed" construction in an adaptation of "Downtown," the song
made famous by Petula Clark. There are a couple of objectionable lyrics
-- objectifying "Shadyside chicks" and referring to transgender people
as "trannies" -- but beyond those you see that there's nothing mean in
his teasing; you hear a real affection for Pittsburgh and its dialect.

This is part 4 of a series where I say nice things about all of the
accents that Gawker's Dayna Evans nominated for "America's Ugliest
Accent." Previously: [New York
City](https://www.grieve-smith.com/blog/2014/10/americas-loveliest-accents-new-york/ "America’s Loveliest Accents: New York").
Nextly:
[Philadelphia](https://www.grieve-smith.com/blog/2014/10/philadelphia/ "America’s Loveliest Accents: Philadelphia").


I think it was an important move for linguists to divorce our field from aesthetics. There can be a science of taste, but science itself is not the arbiter of taste. It is not the place of linguists to judge accents or languages. Just as biologists study animals and plants that many people consider repugnant, linguists may study words and phrases that alarm or disgust people. That said, objectivity doesn’t mean you have to like everything.


America&#8217;s Loveliest Accents: Pittsburgh

<p>I was browsing through <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Relative_clause&amp;oldid=474624105" target="_blank">the Wikipedia page on relative pronouns</a> and I found this table:</p>
<table align="center">
<tbody>
<tr>
<th>Position</th>
<th>With explicit relative pronoun</th>
<th>With omitted relative pronoun</th>
<th>In formal English</th>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><a title="Subject (grammar)" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subject_%28grammar%29">Subject</a></td>
<td>That’s the man [who ran away].</td>
<td>—</td>
<td>That’s the man [who ran away].</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><a title="Direct object" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Direct_object">Direct object</a></td>
<td>That’s the man [who I saw yesterday].</td>
<td>That&#8217;s the man [I saw yesterday].</td>
<td>That’s the man [whom I saw yesterday].</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><a title="Indirect object" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indirect_object">Indirect object</a></td>
<td>That’s the man [who I gave the letter to].</td>
<td>That’s the man [I gave the letter to].</td>
<td>That’s the man [to whom I gave the letter].</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><a title="Oblique case" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oblique_case">Oblique</a></td>
<td>That’s the man [who I was talking about].</td>
<td>That’s the man [I was talking about].</td>
<td>That’s the man [about whom I was talking].</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><a title="Genitive" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genitive">Genitive</a></td>
<td>That’s the man [whose sister I know].</td>
<td>—</td>
<td>That’s the man [whose sister I know].</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Obj of Comp</td>
<td>That’s the man [who I am taller than].</td>
<td>That’s the man [I am taller than].</td>
<td>That’s the man [than whom I am taller].</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<p>The &#8220;in formal English&#8221; column is a bit odd because it only contrasts to the &#8220;with explicit relative pronoun.&#8221;  I&#8217;m guessing the middle column is supposed to be &#8220;informal,&#8221; but it doesn&#8217;t include nonstandard forms that can omit a subject relative pronoun, like &#8220;There was a farmer had a dog&#8221; (observed by Arnold Zwicky among others), or those that can omit a genitive relative pronoun, like &#8220;<a href="https://www.google.com/webhp?hl=en#q=&quot;that's+the+guy's+name+i&quot;" target="_blank">That&#8217;s the guy&#8217;s name I</a> was trying to remember.&#8221;</p>


I was browsing through [the Wikipedia page on relative
pronouns](http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Relative_clause&oldid=474624105){target="_blank"}
and I found this table:

|                                                                                   |                                              |                                          |                                               |
|-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------|----------------------------------------------|------------------------------------------|-----------------------------------------------|
| Position                                                                          | With explicit relative pronoun               | With omitted relative pronoun            | In formal English                             |
| [Subject](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subject_%28grammar%29 "Subject (grammar)") | That's the man \[who ran away\].             | ---                                      | That's the man \[who ran away\].              |
| [Direct object](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Direct_object "Direct object")       | That's the man \[who I saw yesterday\].      | That's the man \[I saw yesterday\].      | That's the man \[whom I saw yesterday\].      |
| [Indirect object](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indirect_object "Indirect object") | That's the man \[who I gave the letter to\]. | That's the man \[I gave the letter to\]. | That's the man \[to whom I gave the letter\]. |
| [Oblique](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oblique_case "Oblique case")               | That's the man \[who I was talking about\].  | That's the man \[I was talking about\].  | That's the man \[about whom I was talking\].  |
| [Genitive](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genitive "Genitive")                      | That's the man \[whose sister I know\].      | ---                                      | That's the man \[whose sister I know\].       |
| Obj of Comp                                                                       | That's the man \[who I am taller than\].     | That's the man \[I am taller than\].     | That's the man \[than whom I am taller\].     |

The "in formal English" column is a bit odd because it only contrasts to
the "with explicit relative pronoun."  I'm guessing the middle column is
supposed to be "informal," but it doesn't include nonstandard forms that
can omit a subject relative pronoun, like "There was a farmer had a dog"
(observed by Arnold Zwicky among others), or those that can omit a
genitive relative pronoun, like "[That's the guy's name
I](https://www.google.com/webhp?hl=en#q=%22that's+the+guy's+name+i%22){target="_blank"}
was trying to remember."


I was browsing through the Wikipedia page on relative pronouns and I found this table: Position With explicit relative pronoun With omitted relative pronoun In formal English Subject That’s the man [who ran away]. — That’s the man [who ran away]. Direct object That’s the man [who I saw yesterday]. That’s the man [I saw yesterday]. That’s the man [whom I saw yesterday]. Indirect object That’s the man [who I gave the letter to]. That’s the man [I


Rogue Scholar Beiträge

“Said” for 2016 Word of the Year

America’s Loveliest Accents: Pittsburgh

Nonstandard relative clauses