Modern conversational style

When, do you think, did people begin to talk as they do today? I know literature isn't always a good way to judge, but it seems people talked in a rather old fashioned way from books and old movies until perhaps the turn of the 20th century. In most of the 20th century, normal conversation seemed rather simple and direct like today. Without big words. Indeed, it seems today everyday speech is small to medium words with a splattering of big words. The art of verbose conversation is probably dying apart from certain snobby intellectuals.

What I noticed from reading Dickens or something is that while in the conversation sections the characters sound like they are beating around the bush trying to make a point, often they express concepts far more articulately than we do today. I wish I could give examples, but I'm not exactly sure what a good one would be.

When would you say everyday speech began sounding as it does today? 1900, 1950? I think 1890-1950 was early modern, and 1950-today late modern. In 'Catcher in the Rye' or many 50s movies teens spoke as they do today except for certain slang words.

People in real life didn't necessarily talk the way that characters in books did. A lot of the authors back then had a tendency to make their dialogue overly flowery.

Until the second paragraph, your post may or may not refer to other languages as well.

I'd say, depending on culture:
- Hong Kong Cantonese tends to be just as slangy, I imagine, as some Englishes today among the younger people.
- But if I talk to fellow regular students of mainland China background, their speech tends to focus far more on studying, i.e. more intellectual in nature.

However, if I turn it into an informal conversation, it's actually far easier to talk to mainland Chinese because they express things more directly and in fact tend to be more liberal in general. This is my impression of those studying in Hong Kong. I find it more interesting to talk to fellows from the north. Conversational Cantonese nowadays has far less useful content than Mandarin. I find it much of a pain to talk to Hong Kong girls, really. Few hot girls, dull, uninteresting, a lot of immature content,... but also far less intellectual AND flirty things to talk about. Darn.

So again, I told some of you so, I'm really a poor exchange partner, because I don't like to associate with my own group. Dull.

"Indeed, it seems today everyday speech is small to medium words with a splattering of big words."

I think you mean "smattering".