April 12, 2012

Insight is Golden


I feel like society has become linguistically lazy.  Today, I heard the word, "Awesome," uttered three times by a news reporter in a five-minute-long segment.  Nope, I do not care, news reporter, if you are using the word contextually.  Your lackadaisical, rote response does not impress me.  Rather, my first instinct is to pound my fists against the table in frustration; instinct no. 2 is to smack my palm in sheer linguistic agony against my forehead.  Then, I yawn out of boredom.  "Awesome" is not as shudder worthy as the usage of the filler word, "like," interspersed between every two words (or so) in a sentence...but still.  Linguistic laziness--"a lazy descriptor," as my husband says--bites.  Like, big time.  Yes, I am being ironically sarcastic.

Is the use of filler words in a sentence a societal marker of non-individuality and non-uniqueness?  A blunder to the carefully-wrought syntax of the American English language, both verbal and written?  Unfortunately, I truly believe so.

We, who take note of linguistic variances, are strange birds who derive pleasure (or pain) in observing how our language evolves--or stalls.  This gives us reason to think critically about how the world goes 'round, with language as a gauge.  Everything seems to be a trend in this land of old; and trends come and go.

So, this begs me to say...
You know, insight is forevermore golden for those who seek it--
here's (raises a mug) to a vocabulary consisting of words that actually mean something.

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