I’ve heard a lot of Gen Z people confuse dystopian and utopian. Usually I don’t care about “correct” language at all, I’d even argue languages that change are alive and changes are often invisible to those with rigid or discriminatory thinking. In this case the confusion seems almost deliberate or directional as in having an origin in some media where it is confused heavily though.

I never would “correct” a person IRL about this, but I am really confused how it is possible that several people can make the exact same error. Are the assigned meanings to those words changing?

  • Libb@piefed.social
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    15 hours ago

    Usually I don’t care about “correct” language at all, I’d even argue languages that change are alive and changes are often invisible to those with rigid or discriminatory thinking.

    But then, without any… ‘discriminatory thinking’ (odd choice of words, to non-native English speaker-me at least), how would we realize there is a change happening in any language if no one cared about some kind of rule-based system in said language?

    That being said, I do agree with you a living language is one that changes (but it’s also one whose users remember its roots and its evolution, making them able to pick the ball, be it to play with it or to transform it as deeply as they fancy as one needs to understand a problem before trying to fix it). But being alive does not have to mean ‘anarchy’ or there quickly won’t be much ability left to communicate (aka the agreement of the both of us on the meaning of the words we use) … Like there would not be much people alive around us if there was not this things called ‘the law’: no law is immutable but all existing laws better be respected, and if it is a bad law it needs to be changed… by people who studied it first ;)

    To answer your rather surprising question (it’s a very… specific chose of words while there are many other and much… wider notions out there the younger generation seems to have lost track of), it probably has to do with the lower level of their education (not their fault, but they are the one paying dear price for it… I almost cried the first time I read this). There can be no ‘nuances’ where there is no education to it. And without much reading going on, well, there is even less of it. As a matter of fact, there is less of everything… even the ability to realize one may be lacking in something specific.