Tag: Language

I Don’t Speak English — Anymore

english-22I don’t speak English anymore.  Apparently, for some years now, I’ve been speaking a dying dialect from the 20th century which hasn’t been English since Brad jumped from Jennifer to Jolie.  (And we all know how that worked out.  Just sayin’!)  Anyway, I’m literally no longer literate in my own language and that upsets me.  I see this as yet another stone in the Yellow Brick Road to hell that’s leading my world to extinction.  Culture is tied to language, and language is the canary in any society’s mineshaft.  Once the canary stops singing, it’s only a matter of time before it’s pushing up daisies.  (BTW, if you caught any of those references, you probably don’t speak 21st century English, either.)

The problem is, as a linguistic dinosaur, I have no idea what half the words people use these days mean.  So, for the most part, I guess.  However, as the world fills up with  bromances, bait-clicks, metrosexuals, and binge watching I find it harder and harder to understand what the hell people are talking about.  Here are a few more of my best guesses.

Cosplay — Derived from “costume” and “play,” this word covers a range of meaning, but I believe it’s actually just a euphemism for someone whose life sucks so badly they spend their time dressing up and pretending to be somebody else.

Mansplaining — This one is very complicated.  On the surface it’s a portmanteau word for a man explaining something.  Dig deeper, and it’s a man explaining something in a very condescending way — usually to a woman.  Dig even deeper, and mansplaining actually means some men have not yet surrendered in the gender wars and they still insist on talking about football and automobiles and other boring, technical stuff — like anybody cares about that crap.

Sideboob — “Sideboob” is one of those words that relies entirely on the speaker, and, oddly enough is not actually about boobs, at all.  It’s about the dress and the woman wearing it.  It illustrates our contemporary attitude towards women.  It suggests that the same dress is both sultry and sleazy and that the woman wearing it is attractive, stylish and sophisticated — but probably a skank.

There’s also:

Askhole — Everybody asks stupid questions but me.
Snowmageddon — Our winter was worse than your winter.
And
Plutoed — Nobody wants me around, but I’m here anyway — and there’s nothing you can do about it.

But by far my favourite is

Screenager — This is an all-purpose word for the latest generation’s obsession with phones, tabs and computers.  However, what it actually means is contemporary teenagers are all losers — why aren’t they out at the Drive-in theater, drinking illegal beer and trying to get pregnant, like we did at their age?

As we used to say, ’nuff said.

Never Say “Never”

never“Never” is a self-absorbed  bastard who hangs around our vocabulary doing nothing except making trouble.  Sure, every once in a while it might bestir itself to state the obvious like “I’ve ‘never’ been to Papua New Guinea,” but in general, it spends its days sittin’ on its ass.  You see “never” hardly ever (notice how I did that) comes up in ordinary conversation.  It thinks it’s too important for that pedestrian activity.  The only time “never” goes into action is when somebody’s jumped into the deep end of their ego pool and clearly can’t swim.  Then, and only then, “never” turns into this verbal ninja, dishing out the hyperbole like it’s Chuck Norris and turning every discussion into the War Of The Words.  Let me show you what I mean.

We use “never” when we’re pissed off —
“You never really loved me.”
Wow, that’s a big statement which pretty much throws 20 years of marriage, two kids and a mortgage under the bus.  Is it true?  Probably not.  It’s just “never” showing off and trying to make things difficult for the other guy.  What this actually means is “In recent history, you’ve been a dick.  You need to clean up your act, buddy.”  Unfortunately, “never” just turned that into the Shootout at the O.K. Corral.

We use “never” when we’re feeling sorry for ourselves.
“I never get anything.”
Clearly, this isn’t the case or we’d be twiddling our thumbs at the corner of Starvation and Depravity in beautiful downtown Mogadishu.  This is just “never” allowing us to indulge ourselves in an overdose of 1st World Problems.  Yeah, yeah, yeah, we got it rough! We didn’t notice Netflix doesn’t have Season #3 of our current TV binge and we’ve already put the self-buttered popcorn in the microwave.  Oh, woe is me!

We use “never” to trot out the self congrats
“I never eat junk food.”  “I never gossip.”  “I never have drama.” “I never look at Social Media.”
Hold it right there!  This is the 21st century: we live on this stuff.  This is “never” adding a few gratuitous strokes to our already plus-size egos.  If — by some miracle — any of us even knows someone who’s never (not ever) done any of these things (not even one of them) we’re probably Tibetan monks living in a cave.

And if that’s the case, what the hell are you doing reading this on the Internet?

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.