LETTER: English language evolves in \u2018delightful\u2019 (and less delightful) ways<\/p>\n
Published 7:00 am Saturday, April 4, 2026<\/p>\n
Our English language is wonderfully flexible and constantly changing with the times. We don\u2019t use laws to hold it steady, or to outlaw changes, as is done by other languages. Some recent examples of these delightful changes that I hear and read:<\/p>\n
\u2022 Off-ramp is not restricted to freeways but has come to mean a way to end the war in the Middle East, as governments are now looking for an off-ramp.<\/p>\n
\u2022 Runway is not restricted to airports but has come to mean a way forward with any project, such as \u201cwe have a clear runway for this project.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2022 Guardrails are not limited to personal safety but have come to mean safety margins for any project to keep it from going sideways.<\/p>\n
\u2022 Rough Seas is not strictly nautical but refers to problems being experienced with any endeavour.<\/p>\n
\u2022 Silos are not just feed-storage but refer to a project with several aspects that are completely independent of the other aspects.<\/p>\n
\u2022 Headwinds are not just bad for ships and planes but mean problems that slow any project.<\/p>\n
\u2022 Gaslighting has nothing to do with old-fashioned street lamps but has come to mean a form of psychological abuse.<\/p>\n
\u2022 On-boarding is not loading passengers onto a ship but means the extensive training of a new employee or participant.<\/p>\n
\u2022 Ghosting has come to mean not getting a response when reaching out to someone.<\/p>\n
\u2022 Detoxing is no longer diet-related but refers to taking a break from all digital media, phone, and laptop.<\/p>\n
\u2022 Influencer is an online leader who sways opinion; and I recently heard the term \u201cpetfluencer.\u201d<\/p>\n
However, don\u2019t get me started with the way that texting and social media have ruined spelling, punctuation, and sentence structure. There ought to be a law!<\/p>\n
Curt Jantzen, Delta<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LETTER: English language evolves in \u2018delightful\u2019 (and less delightful) ways Published 7:00 am Saturday, April 4, 2026 Our…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":581931,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194299],"tags":[49,48,87674],"class_list":{"0":"post-581930","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-surrey","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-surrey"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/581930","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=581930"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/581930\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/581931"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=581930"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=581930"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=581930"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}