The way we speak

Do you have 800, 866 or 877 phone phobias? Do you cringe when you hear a foreign language? George Bernard Shaw was a wizard of words and language. He was born in 1856 and was a celebrated Irish playwright, critic, political activist, and a whole bunch of other things. One of his most quoted pronouncements was that America and England are two lands divided only by a common language. Let that sink in for a minute. Now, the only thing I have in common with Mr. Shaw is the fact that my birth and his death occurred within days of each other in the fall of 1950. I certainly am not about to say that it was pre-ordained that I should check in just as Mr. Shaw was checking out, but I do feel a certain connection due to the astrological coincidence of our arrival and departures, not to mention my steadfast and abiding affection for my ancestral home of Ireland (by way of Ancestry.com and the Tattnall County census which I just found out about a few months ago). But mostly, I just share some of my Celtic brother’s curatorial loyalty and devotion to the preservation of the English language. Words are like the precious leaves, branches and flowers of our vernacular, but Mr. George, I’m sorry as I can be but it might be about time to get a good old gas-powered Poulan double-blade hedge trimmer and go to work on some of these new words that are out there blowing in the breeze. I guess young people feel like they need to be able to better express their innermost being these days, but some of what they’re feeling might be better just kept to themselves, and if nobody understands what it is they’re trying to express, what difference does it make? Anyhow, in honor of some of the newer examples of changes and additions to our English language, here is a small, sanitized sample list for 2025. In the past, if something or someone didn’t look just right to you, it was “sketchy”. That was then. Now, the kids say it’s “sus”. In the past, if something was “neat or hip“, it was “cool” or “happening”. Forget that. Nowadays, it’s “rizz”. Yesterday, if you wanted to emphasize the importance of something, you would have said “this is the main point!” Today, nobody listens to that. You have to say it’s “Top of Mind” if you really want to be understood. Yesterday, if you were “tripping” it meant you were going somewhere in a car with a suitcase. Today, if you are “trippin”, it means you are having a major emotional or mental breakdown probably due to losing an argument with your boo (girlfriend or boyfriend). Of course, today if you are “woke”, it means you are politically liberal. Back in the day, woke is what I was after the teacher slapped a ruler down on my desk and interrupted my nap. By the way, “lit” is also pretty close to “woke”, but way back then, “lit” is what you were when you left the record hop and took the dirt road home to avoid the “fuzz”, which nowadays is the Po Po.

So, as you can see, the condition that George Bernard Shaw described in 1942 continues today with even greater effect, and language is becoming more and more divergent. Shaw might have fretted over the retreating standards of our written word, but he also recognized the accelerating pace of global change that began in the first half of the twentieth century, and that is one thing that won’t change. The world and the way we speak will continue to evolve and revolve. Whether it’s that “hard to understand” person from a call center half-way around the planet, or the 12 year old kid next door, the challenge of a changing world right outside your window is a fact of life. But if you just aren’t quite up to speed on the current lexicon, don’t worry. Wikipedia says the average life span of new words on social media is between six weeks and 3 months. So just hang on and stay woke, or lit, and be “rizz” and maybe start thinking about learning Mandarin Chinese.

“Progress is not possible without change, and those who cannot change their mind cannot change anything.” ~ George Bernard Shaw