{"id":64064,"date":"2024-05-18T06:19:50","date_gmt":"2024-05-18T11:19:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu\/nll\/?p=64064"},"modified":"2024-05-18T06:19:50","modified_gmt":"2024-05-18T11:19:50","slug":"peevable-words-and-phrases-journey","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu\/nll\/?p=64064","title":{"rendered":"Peevable words and phrases: journey"},"content":{"rendered":"

They mostly start out clever, cute, and catchy:\u00a0 e.g., \"curated\".\u00a0 The problem is that they soon go viral, and then just never go away, even after they have become banal and overused, as with \"perfect storm\":<\/p>\r\n

I'm campaigning to have \"perfect storm\" added to peeve polls in the future. As in \"at the end of the day it was a perfect storm.\" It's not unheard of for a book title to turn into a catch[22]phrase, and maybe perfect storm will become a permanent part of the language, but it smacks of fad to me. I feel like I hear it at least three times a week in NPR interviews.<\/p>\r\n

[Comment<\/a> by Dick Margulis to \"'Annoying word' poll results: Whatever!<\/a>\" (10\/9\/09)]<\/p>\r\n

That was 2009, but \"perfect storm\" is still with us, and so is \"curated\", which begins to appear with increasing frequency in the early 70s and really takes off in the 80s.<\/p>\r\n

Now we're facing a veritable onslaught from \"journey\":<\/p>\r\n

<\/p>\r\n

When Did Everything Become a \u2018Journey\u2019?<\/a>

Changing our hair, getting divorced, taking spa vacations \u2014 they\u2019re not just things we do; they\u2019re \u201cjourneys.\u201d The quest for better health is the greatest journey of all.<\/p>\r\n

by Lisa Miller, NYT (5\/13\/24)<\/p>\r\n

Contemporary usage of \"journey\" is so protean and indicative of our age that I wish I could quote almost the whole of this revelatory article.\u00a0 Instead, I'll just mention some of the rubrics it covers, but focus mostly on the linguistic aspects.<\/p>\r\n

Drew Barrymore has been talking with Gayle King about her perimenopause \u201cjourney<\/a>,\u201d and the soccer phenom Carli Lloyd has just divulged her fertility \u201cjourney<\/a>.\u201d By sharing her breast cancer story, Olivia Munn has said<\/a> she hopes she will \u201chelp others find comfort, inspiration, and support on their own journey.\u201d A recent interview<\/a> with Anne Hathaway has been posted on Instagram with a headline highlighting her \u201csobriety journey<\/a>,\u201d and Kelly Clarkson has opened up about what Women\u2019s Health calls her \u201cweight loss journey<\/a>.\u201d On TikTok, a zillion influencer-guides lead pilgrims on journeys through such ephemeral realms as faith, healing, grief, friendship, mastectomy, and therapy \u2014 often selling courses, supplements or eating plans as if they were talismans to help safeguard their path.<\/p>\r\n

\u201cJourney\u201d has decisively taken its place in American speech. The word holds an upbeat utility these days, signaling struggle without darkness or detail, and expressing \u2014 in the broadest possible way \u2014 an individual\u2019s experience of travails over time.<\/p>\r\n

It\u2019s often related to physical or mental health, but it can really be about anything: \u201cPutting on your socks can be a journey of self-discovery,\u201d said Beth Patton, who lives in Central Indiana and has relapsing polychondritis, an inflammatory disorder. In the chronic disease community, she said, \u201cjourney\u201d is a debated word. \u201cIt\u2019s a way to romanticize ordinary or unpleasant experiences, like, \u2018Oh, this is something special and magical.\u2019\u201d Not everyone appreciates this, she said.<\/p>\r\n

Now, moving on to the more specifically linguistic aspects of \"journey\":<\/p>\r\n

According to the linguistics professor Jesse Egbert at Northern Arizona University, the use of \u201cjourney\u201d (the noun) has nearly doubled in American English since 1990, with the most frequent instances occurring online. Mining a new database of conversational American English he and colleagues are building, Egbert could show exactly how colloquial \u201cjourney\u201d has become: One woman in Pennsylvania described her \u201cjourney to become a morning person,\u201d while another, in Massachusetts, said she was \u201con a journey of trying to like fish.\u201d<\/p>\r\n

Egbert was able to further demonstrate how the word itself has undergone a transformative journey \u2014 what linguists call \u201csemantic drift.\u201d It wasn\u2019t so long ago that Americans mostly used \u201cjourney\u201d to mean a literal trip, whereas now it\u2019s more popular as a metaphor. Egbert demonstrated this by searching the more than one billion words in a database called COCA for the nouns people put before \u201cjourney\u201d to clarify what sort they\u2019re on. Between 1990 and 2005, the most common modifier was \u201creturn,\u201d followed by words like \u201cocean,\u201d \u201ctrain,\u201d \u201cmile,\u201d \u201cnight,\u201d \u201coverland,\u201d and \u201cbus.\u201d<\/p>\r\n

But between 2006 and 2019, usage shifted. \u201cReturn\u201d remains the most common noun modifier to journey, but now it\u2019s followed closely by \u201cfaith,\u201d \u201ccancer,\u201d and \u201clife.\u201d Among the top 25 nouns used to modify \u201cjourney\u201d today are: \u201csoul,\u201d \u201cadoption,\u201d and \u201chair.\u201d<\/p>\r\n

In almost every language, \u201cjourney\u201d has become a way to talk abstractly about outcomes, for good reason: According to what linguists call the \u201cprimary metaphor theory,\u201d humans learn as babies crawling toward their toys that \u201c\u2018purpose\u2019 and \u2018destination\u2019 coincide,\u201d said Elena Semino, a linguist at Lancaster University who specializes in metaphor. As we become able to accomplish our goals while sitting still (standardized tests! working from home!), ambition and travel diverge. Yet we continue to envision achievement as a matter of forward progress. This is why we say, \u201c\u2018I know what I want, but I don\u2019t know how to get there,\u2019\u201d Semino explained. \u201cOr \u2018I\u2019m at a crossroads.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\r\n

Journeying along with cancer, instead of doing battle against it, has become one of the most frequent applications of this current buzzword, and it is also employed in what used to be thought of as a fight against many other diseases as well.\u00a0 The journey to health and wellness is one that more and more people are striving to take.<\/p>\r\n

Some of my friends are almost what I would call professional travellers.\u00a0 They have visited scores, even upwards of a hundred, countries all around the world (see, for example, Stefan Krasowski at Rapid Travel Chai<\/a>, who once visited (and toured through) three Middle East countries within 24 hours)\u00a0 For them, life is a literal, perpetual journey, not a metaphorical one like changing your hair.<\/p>\r\n

A peevable feast?\u00a0 No, journey is their raison d'\u00eatre.<\/p>\r\n

 <\/p>\r\n

Afterword<\/b><\/p>\r\n

I'll never forget the shock I experienced the first time I heard someone use the expression \"bad hair day\".\u00a0 Until that moment, I had never realized to what degree some people look upon the hair on the top of their head as virtually extrinsic to and independent of themselves.\u00a0 Learning now about hair journeys that certain individuals engage in, I can see how they are possible.<\/p>\r\n

 <\/p>\r\n

Selected readings<\/b><\/p>\r\n