What's with those people who talk weird, or regionalisms?

Language is constantly changing, and a lot of people have asked me how and why it happens.

This isn't my area of expertise, but I've done a lot of reading about it lately and it's

an interesting topic.

The development of the printing press led people to think about standardizing the English language,

especially spelling, whereas traveling trade led to interactions with people who spoke

other languages and was a catalyst for adding new words.

When we encounter new things, whether a new spice long ago or a new technology today,

we need new words to describe them.

Also, when people are bilingual, they sometimes create new words that are a combination of

the two languages.

I remember interviewing the founder of the magazine Latina when it first came out, and

she talked about her decision to use spanglish words in the magazine, or words that are

a combination of English and Spanish, such as Marqueta for supermarket.

In the same way that people in social groups tend to wear similar clothes, people create

slang and new words to show that they're part of the same group.

Think about the valley girls in California, they like totally had a particular way of speaking,

and you can usually spot MBAs by their phrases such as paradigms for incentivizing key FTEs.

In fact, I'm having a hard time thinking of a strong group that doesn't have its own

jargon or slang.

The separation of American English from British English was an important part of the early

American identity, and the first dictionary of American English was published in 1828

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