Thank you sister K for your kind words. They are an inspiration for a crazy rambler and self-entitled ranter.
Using Words
One of my biggest fears whenever I enter into discourse with
anyone is the improper use of words. I
like big words. I like descriptive
words. I love big descriptive
words! The right words used in the right
order can force the mind to paint an elaborate and eloquent picture taking the
form of anything from intense soul shattering beauty to depraved soul crushing
horror. Meanwhile the wrong words
hastily jumbled together or the right words improperly implemented leaves one
anywhere from confused and flustered to disinterested and judgmental.
For this reason, I hate public speaking. I do not think well on my feet already and
tend to get flustered when put on the spot in front of people. Often times I find myself using big words
that I have only seen contextualized and never bothered looking up the
definitions to. More often than not when
I do this, I find myself regretting it immediately because I have misused a
word or misunderstood the context of it.
I am honestly trying to forgive people when they do the same instead of
immediately assuming they either have no idea what they are talking about or
are obviously of poor intellect. People
get flustered when they speak. Speaking
is scary. The rampant abuse of words and
letters on the internet, however, tends to send me into a futile tirade which I
will expound upon from here on out.
The internet is vast.
Buried deep within the archives of useless trivia and adult content are
places that will direct one to the proper definition of words as well as the
proper spelling of words. There are
features on most websites that will spellcheck words and some even fix
grammatical errors. There is even a
website that has been dedicated to finding the word for which one only knows
the definition to and not the word itself.
I can understand laziness breeds the occasional typo or the occasional
slip up with a misused word from time to time, as well as the difficulty in
understanding/representing a concept that someone is trying to get across when
there is only text to work with (i.e. sarcasm).
I am sure we have all been there before.
I am a compulsive fixer of errors and prefer to frequent the places that
will let me go back in to fix mistake after mistake that I have overlooked so
that I can look reasonably intelligent to “whoever reads this”.
Why then, I ask myself, do people insist upon destroying my
brain with horrible spelling, grammar, and bastard words online? Every time I read a sentence that looks
something like this: “hey r u goin 2 b their
2nite?” I lose a little more faith in humanity.
Whenever people make up words like “meatavore” and “bling” instead of
using perfectly good words like “carnivore,” “decadence,” or “gaudy jewelry” I
can feel them eating away at my very soul.
I have developed a theory about this. Not a theory about why people do this,
because that is most obviously a plot against my sanity. No, this theory is about what will happen to
words and letters if the abuse and neglect of them does not cease. To properly contextualize my theory, I will
paraphrase a story from my childhood. I
cannot take credit for this story nor do I remember the author of the story or
where it came from. There was a fantastic
book my mother used to read to us that had all kinds of horrifying stories
within its bindings; stories which used to fascinate and terrify me before I
was forced to attempt sound slumber. I
blame this book for what is wrong with me, but God do I love it!
There were two little boys who were brothers. The older brother was always polite but the
younger brother was always rude. The
older brother would always say “please” and “thank you” while the younger
brother would simply demand to get his way and offer no thanks in return. One day, the younger brother’s “please” was
talking to the older brother’s “please.”
The younger boy’s “please” was
weak and sickly and struggling desperately to survive while the older brother’s
“please” was strong and healthy and in no danger of death any time soon. Seeing the younger “please’s” plight, the
older “please” offered it a chance to get stronger once more by living in the
older brother in order to get some exercise.
The older brother proceeds to unintentionally speak in double “pleases”
for the duration of a family meal which manages to convince the little brother
of the importance of saying “please”.
Both brothers become polite boys in the end and both “pleases” get
plenty of exercise from that day forward.
This is what will happen to our letters and words if they
don’t get used. They will wither and
die!
I can vouch for letters on this one: they are social things. Letters love to be strung together. They depend upon their fellow letters for
survival. Take for example: Pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis; it is FOURTY-FIVE
letters long. Look how happy those
letters are! Some were so glad to be in
this word they repeated themselves!
There were letters who applied for appearances in this word that got
turned down. Those letters cry
themselves to sleep at night dreaming of the day they will be let back in out
of the rain and made useful again. Maybe
we English speakers have just become lazy.
Has anyone seen the length of some of those German words? They’re doing circles around English and they
have crazy accented letters added to their alphabet. (For example: Donaudampfschiffahrtsgesellschaftskapitän. This is a terrible example because it is a
mere forty-one letters long, but rest assured there are plenty more where that
comes from). Ok, and technically I think
the other example is considered Latin and not English either, but that just
further proves my point. English words
are short enough as it is, we cannot spare to lose any more letters people!
Like the letters that make up the words, words are
social things too and very energetic.
They are like terriers, they crave exercise. Sure there are some larger more lethargic
words that often sit around sleeping on the carpet and rarely do much more than
lay there uselessly, but that does not mean when they are clawing at the door
to get out or staring pitifully at an empty food dish they should be ignored as
punishment. There are literally books
and internet pages dedicated to the memories of words that have been neglected
to death. Think about that.
All of this is not to say that the English language
cannot evolve. I am questioning whether
it is evolving at all or devolving into some putrid, foul smelling, oozing refuse
that no one wants to go near for fear of contracting some fatal festering disease. See that?
I painted a rather disturbing picture there, did I not? I did that with a little help from my words.
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