Comments
by Scoper...
As the Word Turns
English, it is said, is an evolving,
growing language. Kind of like an apartment complex served by a never-ending
string of moving vans, bringing new ones in, hauling old ones out. And
linguistically, there's more than enough to keep us interested long after
we learned to speak, read and write in our formative years. The challenge
is keeping up.
If you're over 30, you can watch every
episode of South Park ever made and still not be with it. ß
You see? Nobody says "with it" anymore! That's so retro.
Some words move in because they're
necessary. Science and technology give us many of these. "Lunar Excursion
Module," for example, and its gas-station-attendant-sounding acronym: "LEM."
You won't find either in a 35-year old dictionary, but if NASA hadn't come
up with them, we'd be saying Neil Armstrong made history when he stepped
off that "spider-thingy." Doesn't have quite the same "gravitas."
Ah, gravitas, courtesy of the 2000
vice-presidential campaign. I had to search the Internet for a definition,
finally coming up with: "High seriousness; dignity; importance." Of course,
the word itself is so highly serious, dignified and important that somehow
I can't remember which VP candidate was supposed to have it. Gravitas.
Now that's heavy. It's one word some of us wish would just go away. I'm
an optimist: we'll be rewarded after the election.
Other words move in because, well,
nobody really knows. Maybe they're hatched out in California and migrate
east (though a case could be made that "gravitas" came from Jupiter.) But
it's one legacy that each generation can claim as a birthright: their own
special vocabulary, a secret code that older folks (the enemy) can't crack.
Or maybe they can but are just too tired to try. Vocabulary Purists (I
gave up being one of those a while back) will say the "new slang" twists
and tortures the language, making communication difficult or impossible.
My parents said this to me. Their parents said it to them.
"When words can mean anything," they
would say, "words mean nothing."
Now, really. I've never seen two teenagers
who couldn't communicate with one another. In the process, they're learning
about context, an aspect of language that's so arcane; we all must learn
it for ourselves. It can't be taught in a classroom.
Start with "cool." Originally meaning,
"not warm," this word signed a multi-year lease when it moved in. Early
jazz musicians may get the credit for its slangification; the best jazz
is cool. Unless it's hot. That can be better, keeping in mind that hot
jazz has a coolness all its own. Today, cool might be the most-used English
word on the Internet, possibly because it takes a computer to keep up with
all its definitions. Try these: OK (that's cool,) amenable (I'm cool with
that,) impressive (cool,) damned impressive (COOL,) laid-back (cool,) won't
turn you in for smoking a joint (cool about that.) That's six out of -
what - a thousand? Let's not even get started on "cool beans."
"Fine" means good, but so does "bad."
In the right context. Sweet! (I think sweet is still cool, but "phat" (extra
cool) might be waiting for the moving van. Its coolness is fading, like
the faded dude at the keg party. Once it's dissed as a word, it'll be replaced
by something hella cool.)
The "faded dude" is drunk, but not
necessarily tight. Tight can mean good, but if he barfs on your shoes,
that is so uncool. He ain't no bro, he ain't no dawg. You could take a
whack at him, but he's probably whacked anyway. Or just ghetto. Don't waste
your time on a scrub. C'mon, quit trippin'. Chill. The party was da bomb.
And that's cool. I mean that's dope.
It's all about context. Damn. I swore
months ago I'd never use "all about" again. It's so lame. Totally bogus.
(Scoper, it's all about you, isn't it? Get a clue!) Sorry. My bad. (The
kind of bad that means bad, not the kind that means good.) Because it's
all about…AAARRRGGHH!!
(EDITOR'S NOTE: Scoper was stricken
by an unforeseen mid-life crisis. He's been sedated and is resting comfortably.
Thanks for reading.)
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