|
|
|
|
By Kathryn Poe
Ever just feel that you are getting old and you didn't even know it? Spending any time with a teenager will do that to you, but even the younger kids are causing me consternation. I thought I was pretty cool for a forty-year-old till my nephew asked me why we had so many of those "big black CDs". I sighed, pulled out Led Zeppelin's Physical Graffiti, and gave a live demo of how a turntable works. His reaction to my enthusiasm was, "Bad". I had to inquire whether this was a good bad or a bad bad. He said it was good bad, like "sweet". I offered "awesome" and he informed me that that was not a cool word any more. I felt like a walking anachronism.
We make our living with words, but words are sneaking around behind our backs and evolving in some very strange ways. I am not just referring to the emoticons that are finding their way into everyday uses, BTW. I have had this confirmed for me by two very different sources.
Case in Point #1
Last week, I bought a copy of Roget's 21st Century Thesaurus to keep at work. I guess I was successfully marketed to since I was sucked in by the promise of "The most innovative, state-of-the-art thesaurus available." Or perhaps it was the "hundreds of recently coined and common slang terms" that drew my rapt attention. The publisher seemed very proud of the fact that this edition included terms like chat room and hacker. They were even kind enough to mark the slang expressions in each entry with an asterisk. There is certainly some entertainment value to adding the older terms to the cool new expressions such as:
Communication (Noun- information transmitted) announcement, briefing disclosure, excerpt, goods*, hot story*, ideas, info*, message, news, pipeline, poop*, report, scoop*, skinny*, warning, word
The last time I heard anyone ask for "the skinny" was last season on The Sopranos.
Case in Point #2
My spouse is fond of those little conversation hearts that can only be found around Valentine's day. I grabbed him a box on my last grocery jaunt unaware of the mirth that lay within that little box. Once we opened them and started reading, a very important part of the process I am told, we realized that we needed a lesson on popular culture. Now, I think the little buggers taste like chalk but I know what they look like. They are pastel hearts that have been around as long as I can remember and always said things like "Be Mine" and "4 U" — cute but inane, textually speaking. Well, the big bad world has caught up to our Valentine's day treats! Most of the phrases were new and improved, but here are a few of my new faves:
There was one I could not quite make out but, I suspect it was ;). Perhaps in the future, these treats will come with documentation to translate their wisdom to us old folks.
TTFN!