Fun with Language II

A long, long time ago – like a whole year or so – I wrote a blog called Fun with Language I.  About time I did a sequel, I think.  So, for this blog, I will pick a couple of quirky things about language and talk about them, not from the perspective of an English professor, precisely, but more from that of someone who loves language and how it is used/abused/misused/infused/confused.  Like last time, I will only pick a couple of things...and save the rest for another day.
 

“What?” – I only list this one in instances when it is followed by a statement like “I was only joking” or something similar.  I think that the listener hears an implied “!” that isn’t necessarily always there.  Without the tone of incredulity, “what” simply means you didn’t hear...and an explanation of the joking nature of the statement is really not helpful as I didn’t hear whatever it was in the first place.  I occasionally get a response that explains a reference – which I didn’t hear, so explaining the reference really doesn’t help since I never heard the reference the first time around.

“Literally” – This one literally drives me nuts.  Okay, no it doesn’t...because if it did, I would be on medication at least and in some sort of care facility at the most.  And therein lies my issue with this word. Like ‘actually,’ it is misused all the time.  People are trying to emphasize, when what they are doing is rendering the hyperbole into reality.  And that’s just not right.  So, someone tells me they could literally eat a horse – Mmmhmm, I’d like to see him try.  

Profanity -- Much of what I feel is happening with language – and this brings me to profanity – is that we seem to constantly be looking for ways to give our lives meaning in the face of technology is changing so fast we can barely keep up with it.  Just the other day, for example, a friend of mine said “Firefox 5?  When did 4 happen?”  So, I think we inundate our language with superlatives and we ramp up hyperbole to make it seem more real so that it seems more fantastic.  In a world where we celebrate the minutiae of everyday life (scan a few Facebook status updates and you’ll know what I mean) that we try to make it have meaning by inflating its importance.  We use a variety of techniques to either make our minutiae stand out, or to make the more interesting aspects of our lives stand out from everyone else’s.  The problem is that it gets used so often that it loses any sort of impact, which negates the point of using it.  A well placed curse here and there can make all the difference in the world – but use it too much and it’s just a lack of creativity and can lower the perceived intelligence of the user.  I’ll give you an example...

There’s a woman where I  work who is wonderful – she is very grandmotherly and manages to remain neutral in much of the back and forth that goes on in any large business – quite a feat when you take a collective group of somewhat quirky people who have dedicated their lives to education.  I had a bad semester awhile back and was caught in some of the shadowy intrigue that is so common but shouldn’t be.  As I left to head home one night, this lovely woman walked me to the door and said, “And as for those others?  F*** ‘em.”  It was the single most profound use of a profane word that I have ever heard.  Which is NOT hyperbole.  I’m not sure I’d ever heard this woman swear, and I’m not sure I’ve ever heard it since.  It made my day – my whole semester, really – and it was that one word that did it.  Take, on the other hand, the countless ‘f-bombs’ (are they even bombs anymore?) that spill across my senses on any given day.  There is no comparison in effectiveness, power, or overall impact.

Let’s compare...

OPTION A:  “I think he's a sort of man people emigrate to avoid. I remember the first time I met Gerald, I said to my wife....either this man is suffering from serious brain damage or the new vacuum cleaner's just arrived. As for his family, they are quite simply the most intolerable herd of steaming social animals that I have ever had the misfortune of turning my nose up to. I spurn you as I would spurn a rabid dog.”

OPTION B:  “You stupid mother******”

Option B is just so humdrum, but isn’t option A lovely?  Doesn’t it just convey a fascinating level of creativity, effectiveness, and overall ‘wincing-ness’ to it?  And there’s not a single f-word in there. 

Literally.*

(*For the record, there are two words that begin with f...so it all depends on how you define ‘f-word’).

To bring it back to the start....I love a turn of phrase (insult or no) that makes me think a little...perhaps even say that tiny pairing of words that makes the speaker proud...

“Wait...what?” 

 Note:  Option A above is taken from a Rowan Atkinson sketch referred to as "A Toast to the Caterers" -- it's quite funny and well worth a watch.