Tag: English language

We’re Killing English

words1We are killing the English language.  I’m not talking about government euphemisms or corporation obfuscation.  No, this is ordinary people taking ordinary words and choking the life out of them.  Let me demonstrate.

Old — Where did all the old people go?  Apparently, they’ve all been rounded up and taken to an over-the-horizon retirement community where they’re enjoying senior living.  (I have no idea what that is BTW, but it seems to involve a lot of golf.)  They specialize in being “78 years young” (See?  We can’t even say the word!) and will eventually be carted off to an Elder Care Facility where … uh … I don’t know.  But old people?  No.  We’ve got seniors and the elderly, but we don’t have any old people anymore.

Fat — Nobody’s fat these days, so unless you’re a supermodel, you have two choices — plus size or obese.  Which would you prefer?  Plus size makes it quite clear that you missed normal by at least 10 kilos, and the world has a special clothing ghetto for people like you, and obese?  Well, that kinda speaks for itself.

Brat — Let’s get real!  Not every obnoxious kid on this planet has a diagnosed disability.  Sometimes, they’re just brats, but if you want to get into a fistfight, mention the word.  It is amazing to me what lengths bad parents will go to, to avoid being called “bad parents” — including saddling their child with an incurable psychological disorder.

Stupid — “There’s no such thing as a stupid question.”  Think about this!  Of course there is, and they’re normally asked by stupid people.  The Law of Probability alone says half the population of this planet is stupider than the other half.  However, use the word to describe someone who is obviously in Group A and you’re liable to get your ass kicked.

Ugly — I truly believe that there are some people in this world who think that, if we don’t actually say the word, ugly people won’t know they’re ugly.

Died — When I was a kid, people died.  It was a harsh reality of life.  Then, suddenly, people quit dying and began passing away (like sugar dissolving in the rain.)  It’s a cute idea, but honestly, when someone goes headfirst through the windshield, “he passed away” doesn’t really describe it.  And, of course, these days, folks don’t even pass away anymore; they merely pass (as if it were a spelling test.)  The #1 preoccupation of literature, religion, philosophy and life itself, and we’ve reduced it to this bullshit?  How bland has our existence become?

This is the language of Shakespeare, Blake and Yeats — have some respect.  But the real problem is, as we continue to drown our language in mild, we’re starting to think that way and that scares the hell out of me.

I’M AN ENGLISH MAJOR!

english7I wrote most of this two years ago and I can’t believe I’ve got to say it all again.

This week, I had another run-in with techies.  I realize they’re the high priests of contemporary society, Steve Jobs is the Messiah and if I don’t click the binary stations of the cross in the correct sequence, I’ll never get to heaven.  Big wow!  I’m a cyber-atheist.  For my money, I can wipe out your entire pseudo religion with a pencil and a piece of paper, so don’t get all high and mighty with me.  Look, you know-it-all nerds, I’ve had it with your oh-so-superior attitude.  I’m an English Major and I can do pompous ass better than you ever thought of.  (Yeah, that’s a preposition at the end of a sentence.  What are you going to do about it, tough guy?)  Just to set the record straight — English Majors were arrogant dicks centuries before you geeks ever had a squad.  We were looking down our noses at regular folk when technology was still a quill pen.  And as far as we’re concerned, you jerks are just digital messenger boys for our ironic mixed metaphors and satirical similes.  So, know your role and shut your mouth.

And never forget, back in high school, while you were playing Space Invaders and having auto-erotic experiences with the Yearbook cheerleaders, I was in the only guy in the Poetry Club. (Do the math!)

English: A Love Affair

englishI love language, and because English is the lover I grew up with, I love her best.  She’s subtle and sensible in slingback Louboutins and knee-torn Levis.  She can dance all night, gliding like a princess or grinding the stage burlesque or rustling between the trees like a black wind witch, flowing on the moonless breeze.  But she is a witch — with conjures that — in magic — change her words to whatever she wants them to mean.  Yet she prefers straight talk — prepositions and modifiers that let you know exactly what and where and when, even if it isn’t now.

And my lover is a thief who steals without remorse.  A freebooting pirate who takes the words she needs — and more — just because she can, gloried by the theft.

She’s a glutton who dines at her sister’s banquets, selecting the most delicate morsels to claim as her own and never tiring of the feast.

But my lover works hard.  She is a mechanical engineer who fits strange words together with invisible nanoweld precision, producing new tools that exactly fit their employment.

And she is an inventor.  Seduced by necessity, she is lewd and wanton, abandoning herself to satisfy his needs.

She is beautiful as the slip mists of fog, sleeping, gauze angel white in the forest dawn; angry as cracked open thunder; sad as a lost puppy’s tears and quiet as a bead of night.

Painful, bold and strong, she hunts with the predators, howling with the chase, quivering with the kill.

And she is a flirt, tempting me, flaming my desire to touch and hold and caress the words she speaks to me.

But mostly, my lover loves me.  She laughs and sings and listens.  She speaks only truth (and the occasional lie.)  She stays with me even when foul with blank page fury, I have no words for her.  And there, at the edge of the wilderness, lost and alone, it is she who comes and finds me, takes my hand and whispers, “Let’s go home.”