What's Standard English, Part 8: The F Word

I could get in trouble for this one.

I conclude this series with the word that prompted me to start it. While the F word is far from standard writing in the workplace, it is becoming increasingly pervasive in office speech, and you might find it here or there in writing. I have seen "WTF" in business text messages. You know what that means.

That spread does not mean the F word has lost its shock value. It still seems overtly and inappropriately aggressive, which is exactly why people use it. In speech, it may function as anger, emphasis, surprise, admiration, or even solidarity, depending on who says it, to whom, and under what circumstances. A close colleague may utter it jokingly and strengthen rapport; the same word from a manager in a tense moment may feel threatening or abusive. As with so much language, meaning lies not only in the word itself but in the relationship and context.

One thing for sure: Using the word would have ended a politician’s career a long time ago; now it’s little more than an understandable, innocuous sound bite.

The issue is bigger than one taboo word. It is about the steady migration of informal speech into professional environments. Workplaces now absorb the habits of texting, social media, streaming culture, and casual conversation far more quickly than they once did. What earlier generations would have considered plainly unprofessional may now pass without notice in some offices, especially in fast-moving, high-pressure, or highly familiar teams. The standard has certainly loosened.

It makes sense to remember that expanded acceptance is not the same as universal acceptance. A word that passes easily among peers may damage credibility with clients, offend a reader, or create risk in a difficult Human Resources situation.

Has the F word entered standard English? Not fully. But it has undeniably moved closer to the center of ordinary usage than many people are willing to admit. Standard English changes as culture changes, and professionalism now depends less on rigid rules than on audience, judgment, and timing.

What's Standard English, Part 7: :-) 😀 :-( 👍

The emoticons and symbols in the heading of this post represent the first time I have used them in the 21-year history of this blog—or anywhere, for that matter. I try to let my words speak for me in print. But that doesn't mean I am following some kind of usage convention. The standard is to use them. Such devices, once reserved for text messaging, have been the norm in business email for some time. They have specific meanings known by the writer and reader, so I suppose they count as language.

Still, their rise creates an interesting tension. Emojis can clarify tone in the quick, stripped-down medium of email. A brief “Thanks” may seem abrupt; “Thanks 🙂” may appear warm and appreciative. A thumbs-up can save a whole sentence. In fast-moving exchanges, these marks can do the work that facial expression, gesture, and speaking voice do in conversation.

On the other hand, they also blur the line between informal and formal writing. A smiling face or laughing symbol may seem harmless between teammates, yet the same mark may appear unserious in a difficult message, a disciplinary response, or a communication with a client. As with salutations, punctuation, and word choice, context governs everything. The writer must ask not merely, “Is this common?” but “Is this right for this reader and this moment?”

So are emoticons and emojis now part of Standard English? In practice, yes—at least in many everyday forms of digital writing. They may not belong in every document, and some writers and readers (like me) will resist them, but they are no longer fringe devices. They have become one more way that writers signal meaning, attitude, and relationship. Once again, the lesson is the same: standard English is not fixed. It changes because people do.

What's Standard English, Part 6: Ain't

This post ain't going to take long to read. Ain't might not have become more standardized in workplace writing, but it is becoming more common in speech. And you can bet that standardized speech eventually becomes standardized workplace writing. You can do your own research on this fact.

You'll never get an opponent to concede that ain't is Standard English, but you will win this one: Ain't has a long history of standard usage before it was discredited by prescriptive grammarians, and I completely understand why. We have standard contractions for you, we, and they are not (aren't) and he, she, and it is not (isn't). But we don't have one for I am not, although amn't has a history of standard English usage. Thus, we have ain't.

Since ain't has not disappeared from English for over three centuries, I believe it will become standard in both speech and writing. Ain't is gaining momentum.

What's Standard English, Part 5: Comma Splice

Consider these sentences:

• I am your technical consultant, you can contact me for any problem you encounter with the system.
• Margo is in the conference room, she is checking the technology for her presentation tomorrow.
• Please do not sign out during a break, doing so will make it harder for you to return to the program. 
• Thanks for your help, we will use your guidance throughout the project.

Grammatical purists would call all four examples comma splices, the technical error of substituting a period with a comma to separate two sentences. Yet four strong writers wrote them to me in emails that were otherwise flawless in complying with standard English rules. I am sure they were aware of the miscue, but they might have written them for various reasons, including variety in sentence composition, rebellion against stringent grammar rules, or carelessness amid volumes of writing tasks. 

The speed required of workers who need to process hundreds of emails a day has undoubtedly contributed to the rise of comma splices. For this reason, it is not easy to say any longer that comma splices are mistakes.

What's Standard English, Part 4: Compose / Comprise

If you keep getting it wrong long enough, don't worry. The wrong way will become the standard sooner or later. We learned the distinction between compose and comprise by remembering the whole comprises the parts and the parts compose the whole. Therefore, we might say, "Canada comprises 10 provinces and 3 territories" or "10 provinces and 3 territories compose Canada." Thus, using passive voice we should say, "Canada is composed of 10 provinces and 3 territories." Then "Canada is comprised of 10 provinces and 3 territories" should be considered nonstandard usage.

Really? You can spot is comprised of in respected publications such as The New York Times, The New Yorker, and The Atlantic. And once they use it, we all will. In fact, Merriam-Webster considers comprised of a standard phrase. Here is another case of the difficulty in defining and demanding standard English when English standards change.

What's Standard English? Part 3: Over / More Than

In the 1990s, an editor returned one of my articles with a correction. She replaced over with more than in the sentence "Over 1,500 students attend that high school." Even three decades ago, over was in use by pretty much everyone in such contexts. Grateful that my editor accepted my article for publication, I decided not to argue with her over this small point. I did not want to tell her that over has been in use in the English lexicon for more than a millennium.

Grammatical purists seem pleased to put speakers and writers in a linguistic straitjacket with rules that have lain dead for a long time. They fail to consider three historical facts:

1. Language evolution is natural. For cultural, social, biological, and technological reasons, language changes. The world gets smaller, thanks to globalization and technology, so our loan words from other languages increase. Our ability, or inability, to properly pronounce words, such as the Philippine English gigil, now a standard English word, can change the way we spell it.

2. The difference between spoken and written language diminishes over time. Consider the grammatical marker that, as in I know that you know. Our elementary writing teachers would insist on using that in the sentence. But in speech, saying I know you know sounds fine. In time, dropping that in this sentence becomes the accepted writing standard.

3. Usage challenges have a long history. Upon researching etymology, you learn that every word is subject to changes that embellish, diminish, or eliminate them from the language. 

If you ever get called out for using over instead of more than, don't be like me back in the 1990s. Fight back. Believe me: over has been acceptable for over a thousand years.

What's Standard English? Part 2: Salutations

I have written about salutations on one or two occasions in the 21-year history of WORDS ON THE LINE because the topic remains popular among learners in my writing workshops and webinars and readers of this blog. I revisit salutations to show how standards change, which is the focus of this series.

In a post from 17 years ago, I mentioned that commonsense should dictate how you address executives, managers, supervisors, teammates, clients, and vendors. A later post 8 years ago suggested that you should let your organizational culture dictate how you address readers in your emails.

But the point here is we have gone a long way from the medieval "peace be with you, brother" for several reasons, one of them being that for centuries women too have been readers of messages. Another reason is the secularization of the workplace. Technology has also contributed to the need for shortcuts, and globalization has forced our hand to address people politely to compensate for our intentions getting lost in linguistic and cultural translations.

By the nineteenth century, we saw "Dear Sir" or "Dear Madam" become the standard. Then came email, which revolutionized the salutation to "Hi," "Hello," "Greetings," "Good morning," or "Good day" replacing the "Dear," and in most contexts first names replacing last names. Less formality. Then came the complete removal of "Mr." and "Ms." in deference to gender fluidity. Now we address people by their given and surnames, as in "Hi Max Friedman."

Still the questions persist: Is "Dear" in a salutation dead? Is it ever all right to write "Mr." or "Ms."? What if my organization is not as progressive about salutations? The two posts I mention in the second paragraph still hold true, yet no one can reasonably say only one salutation is right. It all comes down to a personal choice.