Linguistic anachronisms (and an adverb!)
Aug. 23rd, 2017 10:38 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
hypatia_66My sister tells me I've used a couple of anachronisms in one of my stories (only one?). This doesn't bother me much, because to some extent it was deliberate, but I looked it up as a problem and found a New Yorker article.
What I found instead of anything helpful on the subject, was the use of the word "thusly" (in the New Yorker!) Now I've noticed that this word is used in a lot of stories posted on these forums and it always gives me the creeps. But then I'm English. "Thus" is the adverb, not "thusly" (I'm supported by my dictionary in this). I'm curious to know when it became normal usage in the US?
Our two languages will probably become mutually unintelligible one day, but I hope not yet. The changes add richness, even if I cringe occasionally.
Standard European English is becoming different from native English in other ways. It's all like watching the way Latin started to evolve into the Romance languages of Europe a couple of millennia ago.
