Monosyllabic poisoning

A Zits in which teenage monosyllabism becomes contagious:

Well, not ordinary teenage monosyllabism (which is illustrated in Jeremy’s speech), but a speech style (sometimes mimicked in writing) in which the words of a sentence are produced as if each was a sentence on its own. (I’m pretty sure this has been discussed on Language Log, but I can’t seem to unearth a relevant posting.)

2 Responses to “Monosyllabic poisoning”

  1. Molly Says:

    The LL post that comes to mind for me is http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/002910.html .

  2. arnoldzwicky Says:

    To Molly: yes, that’s the one I was thinking of. Thanks.

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