Languaging

1. I am in general not a very snarky language person. I know the rules of spelling, punctuation, grammar—most of them—but as long as I can understand you and I’m not being paid to edit, do what you want. I think there was a time when things like quotation marks used for emphasis on a sign made me “angry” or I just “couldn’t stand” a book with too many comma splices but then I got older and well, had some real problems. There are a few key exceptions to this laissez-faire attitude, however, and the main one is the word “s*minal”—no one should be using this word. For most of my life I didn’t notice the root of it and used it cheerfully to mean “foundational” or similar, and then one day about ten years ago I realized, and I stopped. I have also tried to point out to others that this word is both gendered and gross, but it seems not to have worked as I am still hearing it and I don’t want to. This does not need to happen—you can just say “foundational work” instead or rephrase the sentence. This is as close to censorship as I will ever get—we just do not need s*men in the discourse.

2. On a better note, I do like the evolution of language more and more as I age. No one needs to explain “6-7” to me—I know I can never know—but the turns of phrase I can catch the meaning of from context, I enjoy. I was talking to a Young Person and explaining that among the magazines I subscribed to as a child was Penny Power, the children’s offshoot of Consumer Reports, which taught kids how to manage their money and be savvy consumers. I was laughing at my geeky kid self, and the Young Person replied, “Actually, that’s pretty slay, teaching financially literacy.” I was pleased by the compliment, although I did not write or publish the magazine, and did not even actively choose the magazine for myself, having been under 10 years old at the time, but a compliment is a compliment. Mainly I was excited to learn that in these modern times, slay can be an adjective meaning very impressive or cool. How exciting! I happily tucked that away like a squirrel with a nut in my cheek. Will I ever be brave enough to say something is slay in casual conversion? It remains to be seen, but I hope so.

3. What I like about #2 is a new shade of meaning in an old structure—the implied violence of “slay” in the structure of a compliment—the new use of an old word—a verb turned into an adjective. Language, doing something new and neat! I’m less impressed with evolved words that seem to simply be devolving—like “additive” into “addicting.” I have no proof but I think that one happened because I lot of people either misheard or mispronounced “addictive” as “addicting” for so long we got a second word that means the same thing and sounds almost the same—”Oh these new caramel radishes are addictive” contains no different nuance (to my mind??) from “Oh these new caramel radishes are addicting.” A net neutral for the language and not very interesting. I am willing to accept the new verb “gifted” as “gave a gift” even though it is not that interesting because, I suppose, that’s one word that does the work of three. The old word “gave” was less specific—”He gave them hell,” “the server gave me my bill,” “the seat of my pants gave out,” etc. One can be gifted gifts and that’s all. So—ok, it’s not as good as slay but it’s doing something. But these are my personal subjective evaluations—I will proceed with a conversation using any of these words except #1, at which point I really must interject.

4. Further on the subject of my personal subjective evaluations, the second worst word in the English language is “sip” but I have no wordy logical explanation why—I just really really hate it. “Sip on” is somehow even worse. I won’t argue if you use it, but I will die a little inside.

5. “Languaging” is a made-up nonsense word I have used here to be difficult or possibly funny, your mileage may vary.

PS—This post was not reviewed nor approved by Linguist-in-Chief Anne-Michelle Tessier. This is purely my own non-academic nonsense.

PPS—Mark’s printer is making a random beeping sound at all hours and Mark is pretending it is a delightful form of interspecies conversation so he doesn’t have to look into what is wrong with the printer. He says the printer is saying hello. Hello from Mark’s printer.

PPS—I finished My Year of Rest and Relaxation and I have a lot of thoughts! I will write some of them down soon!

PPPS—I wrote this post on Wednesday evening and queued it to send Thursday but had to come back on Thursday at lunch to add this convo:
RR: Smell my wrist?
MS: That’s nice!
RR: You like that one? I’m not crazy about it.
MS: No, it’s good.
RR: I got like 15 perfume samples, they are all over my bureau, did you notice?
MS: No, where did they come from?
RR: Sephora. [editor’s note: I have a problem, a very specific miniature hoarding situation, limited specifically to cosmetic samples.]
MS: I see.
RR: What’s the largest thing I could bring into the apartment without you noticing, do you think?
MS: Dunno. Couch?
RR: You concern me.
Printer: Beep-beep.
RR: I—
MS: The printer is also concerned.
RR: It should be.
MS: Let’s try unplugging it.
RR: I—
Printer (sings a little song)
MS: It’s rebooting.
RR: I am starting to feel the printer does not want me talking to you. Do you think it’s like Evan, it wants rid of me so it can marry you?
MS: It’s a reverse Oedipal situation?
RR: Would that mean…the printer is your father?
MS: No, instead of killing the father and marrying the mother, it wants to kill you and marry me!
RR: So I am the printer’s mother in this scenario?
MS: Yeah.
RR: I did not give birth to everything in the apartment.
MS: Oh, ok.
RR: Only the cats.