When you're writing a diary and you want to describe the beautiful flowers you saw today, you write, "I have never seen such beautiful flowers."
When you're dining at a restaurant and you try a dish you've never had before, you exclaim, "Such a delicious dish!"
When you're doing your homework and it's already midnight, you complain, "There's so much homework every day!"
Suddenly, you realize something is not right. Because you realize that "such" and "so" are similar in meaning, which is "like this," and yet, most of the time, you seem to use them as substitutes for intensifiers like "very" and "extremely," even though they don't actually add emphasis to the meaning, even when it's not necessary to emphasize that the described item is "like this" in the context of your statement.
You also realize that even common words like "very" and "extremely" have become too common. For example, when people describe something as large, regardless of whether its size is enough to be intensified, they tend to add "very" before the word "large." People don't say "My workload is large," but rather prefer to say "My workload is very large."
It seems that the word "very" has lost its original meaning and has become a placeholder for adjectives.
You have a friend whom you chat with every day.
One day, you're discussing Elon Musk taking over Twitter, and you hear him say, "As the saying goes, Twitter will eventually go bankrupt."
You're a bit confused, not because of the bankruptcy of Twitter, but because he said "as the saying goes," and you've never heard him say "as the saying goes" before. So you ask him when he said that, and he replies:
"I never said it, but adding 'as the saying goes' before speaking makes people think that what you're saying is reasonable."
You can only nod in agreement because you can't argue against it. Indeed, saying "as the saying goes" makes a statement sound like it has been repeated many times, and statements that have been repeated many times seem to be reasonable.
"As the saying goes" seems to have lost its original meaning as well.
You hear your friend say, "The person who invented the term 'yyds' has been arrested."
You're a bit puzzled, so he explains further.
"It's because a livestreamer had someone in their chat room call them the 'eternal god,' so they started calling themselves the 'eternal god' frequently, and that's how the term 'yyds' came about. And then the livestreamer got arrested for running a gambling operation."
You're surprised that "yyds" can also be considered a meme.
"Why not? Everyone is saying it."
You think again, and it seems that the standard for "yyds" has become lower recently. It seems that anyone who does something outstanding can be called a "god." This term originally referred to those supreme, unbeatable beings, but it seems powerless in the face of "yyds."
Perhaps the meaning of "god" has been weakened.
Your thoughts return to the beginning of the topic, "The person who invented the term 'yyds' has been arrested." This statement doesn't seem accurate because it was actually a fan of that livestreamer who invented "yyds."
You were about to tell your friend about this, but when you were scrolling through videos and saw the exact same statement in the comments, you understood everything.
You come across another video, which is about a person who only knows how to use memes being criticized by another person for "having no original thoughts," and then being insulted to the point of being speechless.
"Without technology and hard work, let's get down to business, folks!"
"Come on, isn't this really cool?"
"I'm really done with this."
"I really appreciate it."
"Oh no, Barbie is done for now."
"Retreat! Retreat! Retreat!"
You have to admit that these memes were fun at first, but when you see the "meme kid" in the video who can't say anything other than memes and has no original thoughts, it makes you reflect on whether people are formulaic in their language.
The assertion that "internet memes destroy linguistic diversity" has become a cliché, but you can't help but think that while this statement is quoted and repeated over and over again, few people point out the harm of the lack of diversity. People just shout the same slogan to oppose meme culture, but what is the purpose? The opponents don't understand, and the ones opposing it can't see it themselves. It seems that the existence of this statement is just to exist, to give people a standpoint, something to argue about.
This statement itself is against "formulaic language," but ironically, it has become a formula, a slogan that people shout. If you were a meme kid, you would probably say, "Heh, in the end, I became the person I hate."
Don't you just love how META it is?
People see the slogan and think that the person shouting it has a powerful speech, and they believe in the slogan, as if things should be as the slogan says. Some people believe in different slogans and curse at the followers of other slogans, but what are they cursing? The slogans. In the end, people's opinions are manipulated by a few slogans.
You attend a speech on the topic of gender traits.
The content of the speech is profound, discussing the reasons for the formation of social gender, the construction of gender, and so on. But what struck you the most was when the speaker mentioned: "Men should be masculine, and women should be feminine, but it's just a slogan people shout." Then, he said:
"When a slogan appears, thinking stops."
Almost everyone, upon hearing this statement, couldn't help but cheer for him and applaud to show their agreement. Because you were watching a video, you saw that the bullet comments and comments section were filled with this statement as well.
At this moment, you couldn't help but feel a chill down your spine.
"The statement 'When a slogan appears, thinking stops' is also just a slogan people shout, isn't it?"
It seems that humans can never escape the repetition of language, always inevitably stripping words of their intended meaning, and excessive repetition and emphasis are making words powerless. Even worse, it is causing humans to lose the ability to think.
I've been writing articles about the Backrooms recently and have been posting some works on the Chinese Wikidot site. Occasionally, I also visit the forum to read other people's drafts and provide some suggestions for revisions. One day, while reading a draft, I came across a sentence written by an author:
The number of drugs cannot be calculated at present. Furthermore, it is not ruled out that the number of drugs is infinite.
This sentence has an obvious problem. The meaning of "furthermore" is "in addition to this," which means "excluding this." So, the meaning of this sentence is:
The number of drugs cannot be calculated. Excluding the number of drugs, the number of drugs may be infinite.
This is a ridiculous mistake. It seems that the author didn't understand the meaning of "furthermore." But it made me think, why didn't he understand the meaning of "furthermore," yet still used it? The answer is simple. Because most of the works in the Backrooms series have a language style that leans towards the clinical tone of the SCP Foundation, pursuing linguistic rigor and logic, words like "furthermore" often appear in the works. This author probably frequently read "furthermore" in other people's works and mistakenly used it as a common conjunction without delving into its meaning.
From this example, it can be seen that when people repeat a word, the following events occur in sequence:
- The meaning of the word is weakened, such as "very" no longer being able to intensify the emphasis, and "god" no longer being limited to those who have made outstanding contributions or are unmatched in abilities.
- Part of the meaning of the word is stripped away, such as the term "chef" originally referring to someone who has an unreasonable love for something, but now it is used purely to describe someone who likes something.
- The word loses its original meaning and is given a new meaning, such as "PUA" now being used to refer to "mental manipulation," and "as the saying goes" being used to enhance persuasiveness.
- The newly added meaning of the word also goes through events 1, 2, and 3 through repetition, such as "as the saying goes" becoming a mere catchphrase for some people, without any special meaning.
If this continues, the meaning of words will be drained in such repetition, ultimately becoming empty symbols. From a linguistic perspective, this may be a minor issue because language is constantly evolving, and a word that has "expired" can be replaced with a new word, enriching the language in the process.
But in life, when a noun representing a certain concept has been repeated to the extent of events 3 and beyond, it can have both positive and negative consequences. From a positive perspective, meaningless things become meaningful. From a negative perspective, unreasonable things become "reasonable" under the explanation of this "almost expired" noun.
"I pray to the heavens, begging you to let me survive," - The word "pray" originally referred to praising and thanking the Creator in religion, but in this context, it brings a glimmer of hope to him, giving it meaning.
"Why are you crying? You're a 'boy'! A man doesn't shed tears!" - The meaning of "boy" here is no longer a young male in the physiological sense, or even a socially defined masculine male, but rather a phrase parents use to teach their children not to cry.
Like all things with duality, the repetition of language can bring benefits, but it also causes many tragedies, which is undeniable.
Unfortunately, unlike things like science that can be controlled by humans, the negative effects of language repetition are almost impossible to stop because the speed at which memes spread, split, and derive is astonishing. This phenomenon, where the meaning of a word is weakened and difficult to intervene due to repetition, can be called "meme mutation."
People often say "rumors stop with the wise," but the meaning of this statement has also been stripped away. What kind of person is wise? The person saying this often considers themselves wise, but they inevitably become one of the mediums for spreading rumors. In fact, no one can completely avoid spreading rumors because many times people spread rumors not as "XX is XX," but rather as "Do you know XX? I heard it from someone else, I don't know if it's true, but what if it is?"
Writing up to this point, I can't help but start to ponder the meaning of my own article. I did explain why repeated words become powerless from a linguistic perspective, what happens when the meaning of words is stripped away, and the dual nature of language repetition. However, I seem to be unable to find any "solution."
Because everyone, including myself, inevitably becomes a repeater of language.
Perhaps the so-called "solution" is also a concept whose meaning has changed after being repeated, or perhaps it is not as important as people emphasize.