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Sticks 'N Stones
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This is a rant. Nothing more. I anticipate that once I've gotten it off my chest, I'll feel better. So, here goes: A mean-spirited, cathartic, good old-fashioned rant.
Language can be an incredibly beautiful thing. Deft speakers can turn a simple, banal observation into something verbally artistic. Our young people take old, dead words and make them freshly new, inspiring the tragically unhip to modernize and pronounce "cool" as "kewww-uhl." As Americans we should feel so proud, so lucky, to have such linguistic freedom. All our slang, our neologisms, our witty banter and turns-of-phrase -- all these things but conversational WMD's in our verbal arsenals.
(Okay, that was weird...)
But then, for me at least, there's also a veritable DARK SIDE to taking liberties with Lady Language. I go absolutely ape when, in conversation, it's obvious that the speaker believes he or she is being incredibly clever in using a "new" linguistic "feature" to describe an "old" concept.
OK, some background: Recently, an acquaintance was telling me -- let's say -- about an evening he had spent at a bar with a coworker, a woman with whom he was in no way romantic. In fact, in most conversations in which he mentions female acquaintances/friends, this guy insists on clariyfying that all these relationships were/are platonic. So, finally -- in dialog form -- here comes today's example of "get-my-goat" vocabulary.
This guy: "Hey, did I ever tell you about Tina?"
Me: "Um, no, who's Tina?"
"She and I used to work together, and sometimes we'd go out after work to shoot pool."
Me: "Oh, okay. No, I've never met her."
(I can feel it coming...)
"Yeah, she was a pretty good pool player. She'd let me win from time to time, though..."
(Let's just get this over with)
Me: "So, was she...?"
(Chuckling) "Oh, no, no..."
(Here it comes, here it comes!)
"She was just a FRIENDGIRL" (Continued chuckling.)
Me: Pulling a loaded (two shells) German Luger from my backpack. "Hey, mang, time for you to meet MY leel fren' !!!"
For Chrissake, I know it's just a word, just a harmless neologism, near-euphemism, whatever... But it's all in how he says it: He knows it's loaded, expecting everyone who hears it to laugh along with him because it's such a clever solution for one of the English language's ostensible shortcomings. (Actually, the first person who ever used "Friendgirl" to put a title on that "girl who was onlly his friend" probably deserved some credit -- but only after promising to lock the word away in his dark, dark voicebox, never to allow the term to climb his vocal cords back to daylight.)
Final observation: This whole "misuse of language" reminds me of a scene in the movie Office Space. Peter, the main slacker character, asks his carpenter (friendboy) neighbor, Lawrence, whether any of the other construction workers at his job had ever said to him "Sounds like you're having a case of the Muuundays" when he was clearly in a foul mood. Lawrence (Diedrich Bader) starts shaking his head, obviously perturbed by the language, and says, "Naw...Naw, man, I think if someone said that he'd get his ass kicked!"
Fuckin' A! (To borrow a popular line from the same film)
So, okay, friendgirl, you've been warned! And as another bonus word of warning: Never, never, never ask me how "the wiffy" (wife) is doing. Use that oh-so-entertaining pronunciation AND friendgirl in the same sentence, and me an' my boyhomes might have to kick some serious assage.
Language can be an incredibly beautiful thing. Deft speakers can turn a simple, banal observation into something verbally artistic. Our young people take old, dead words and make them freshly new, inspiring the tragically unhip to modernize and pronounce "cool" as "kewww-uhl." As Americans we should feel so proud, so lucky, to have such linguistic freedom. All our slang, our neologisms, our witty banter and turns-of-phrase -- all these things but conversational WMD's in our verbal arsenals.
(Okay, that was weird...)
But then, for me at least, there's also a veritable DARK SIDE to taking liberties with Lady Language. I go absolutely ape when, in conversation, it's obvious that the speaker believes he or she is being incredibly clever in using a "new" linguistic "feature" to describe an "old" concept.
OK, some background: Recently, an acquaintance was telling me -- let's say -- about an evening he had spent at a bar with a coworker, a woman with whom he was in no way romantic. In fact, in most conversations in which he mentions female acquaintances/friends, this guy insists on clariyfying that all these relationships were/are platonic. So, finally -- in dialog form -- here comes today's example of "get-my-goat" vocabulary.
This guy: "Hey, did I ever tell you about Tina?"
Me: "Um, no, who's Tina?"
"She and I used to work together, and sometimes we'd go out after work to shoot pool."
Me: "Oh, okay. No, I've never met her."
(I can feel it coming...)
"Yeah, she was a pretty good pool player. She'd let me win from time to time, though..."
(Let's just get this over with)
Me: "So, was she...?"
(Chuckling) "Oh, no, no..."
(Here it comes, here it comes!)
"She was just a FRIENDGIRL" (Continued chuckling.)
Me: Pulling a loaded (two shells) German Luger from my backpack. "Hey, mang, time for you to meet MY leel fren' !!!"
For Chrissake, I know it's just a word, just a harmless neologism, near-euphemism, whatever... But it's all in how he says it: He knows it's loaded, expecting everyone who hears it to laugh along with him because it's such a clever solution for one of the English language's ostensible shortcomings. (Actually, the first person who ever used "Friendgirl" to put a title on that "girl who was onlly his friend" probably deserved some credit -- but only after promising to lock the word away in his dark, dark voicebox, never to allow the term to climb his vocal cords back to daylight.)
Final observation: This whole "misuse of language" reminds me of a scene in the movie Office Space. Peter, the main slacker character, asks his carpenter (friendboy) neighbor, Lawrence, whether any of the other construction workers at his job had ever said to him "Sounds like you're having a case of the Muuundays" when he was clearly in a foul mood. Lawrence (Diedrich Bader) starts shaking his head, obviously perturbed by the language, and says, "Naw...Naw, man, I think if someone said that he'd get his ass kicked!"
Fuckin' A! (To borrow a popular line from the same film)
So, okay, friendgirl, you've been warned! And as another bonus word of warning: Never, never, never ask me how "the wiffy" (wife) is doing. Use that oh-so-entertaining pronunciation AND friendgirl in the same sentence, and me an' my boyhomes might have to kick some serious assage.
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