Wednesday, January 25, 2012

The slashing gashing severed vernacular

"Rivers of blood" - Sounds like something out of a 1950s horror movie. Funny how we incorporate such lexicons into our daily speak. Some whiz bang 20 something slams a double tall double (oops make that a "Grande") and the next thing you know the politicians are "mike checking" it all over cable news. "Wtf" is going on here lol? Our language is getting minced and diced to something Billy Mays would be proud of. On the one hand it helps pack more verbiage into our already over packed carry around linguistic back pack but there is no other hand because it was assumed and later dropped. Watch out for those dangling participles they'll get in your face every time. And what's with all the abbreviations and acronyms? Even knowing their meanings oft times is of no help. The Google is many times no help because I wasn't looking for the latest deal on a river rafting trip and I surely don't need a blood transfusion from the nearest blood bank.

You can just about sandwich any two words or phrases together and have the latest catch phrase that they'll be using around the office. Like shooting off fireworks, the peopnage will oo and ah and incorporate it into daily communications because it's what the CEO is using at the moment. " Well back in my day" we had standards damn it! We spoke in complete sentences and defined acronyms at the beginning. Now it may be necessary to take a translator when moving about. I thought English was our primary language here. Forget delving into the bowels of a text messaging conversation even the Urban Dictionary won't help you there. We have isolated ourselves to the point that no one can interpret our true meaning even with all the graphics and squiggles we end the sentence - omg lol just kidding. A couple hundred years from now the archeologists will have no clue when they dig through our electronic clay tablets and try to decipher this tech speak. And everyone just loves to create their own slice of the language because you never know it just might make main stream and they can claim it as their own graffiti in the daily dialogue.

I like to keep focus on how the mass information flow spins what should be simple objective actions. It's never a simple matter of rain. Such reporting must be followed with as many adjectives as will fit into a two minute segment. "Sell them the sizzle" was the ancient expression. But there in lies a problem when we can't step back and realize that we're all just trying to make it one more revolution on this globe. No need to belittle me or anyone else in the process. Think we aren't being programed? A little test and you can tell if you have more than a few brain cells left. Fill in the blank:

Tax _________
Welfare_______
Arab_________
Muslim________
Illegal_________

Maybe you can think of some more, these were off the top of my ever shrinking head. Step back with jaded eye when reading or viewing the news because you know they have an ulterior motive. But with so much blood and mayhem cropping up are we becoming desensitized to what's going on? That is unless it's happening to us.

Later and keep your linguistic shields up.

6 comments:

BBC said...

I've made up a few new words and phrases myself, now if I could just remember what the hell they are.

Demeur said...

Old timers disease maybe?

Ole Phat Stu said...

... and the standards of spelling, of grammar and the size of vocabularies deteriorate :-(

MRMacrum said...

Wuz da prob dude? I seek AOLese jes find. U shud to.

Demeur said...

Yeah Stu someone once said that the average vocabulary is something around 25,000 words. My guess is that today it's closer to 15 K.

Crum omg m ROFL!

Randal Graves said...

Scurvie popery, in Rome it raynes blud.