Confession time: I’m particular about words, and I always have been. I’m an avid reader, and love to write. But I struggle sometimes when I communicate. This may (or may not) be super obvious to the people who know me well. Sometimes when I’m overtired or worn out, I stutter and lose words—that’s how it feels in my head. I attempt to speak, to use the perfect word, but my brain goes dark. There’s a gaping black hole the size and shape of the universe where the word should be. It’s incredibly frustrating, which makes me upset, which worsens the situation. I have taken to calling this condition stress dyslexia.
I bring this up because I was recently catching up on some reading on my iPad. The Dictionary.com app popped up the Word of the Day. It was a word that I knew, but I followed it anyway, just for fun. (Side note, the iPad app is not great, but it’s okay. The Word of the Day push feature works well, but doesn’t automatically update today’s word when you click through.) Beside the definition of the word that I followed (that I cannot recall now), there was an article about dyslexia. Due to my recent obsession with this condition, I gave it a read. It turns out it’s not a retention or memory problem but a problem with recall. Yup. I got that. Nothing wrong with my ability to learn words or my memory. I just can’t conjure the words I need at crucial moments.
Perhaps that’s why I try to be so particular and tend to criticize others’ word choices. (For the record, that’s a reflex, an impulse, and not something I do with malice aforethought or intent to criticize.) For me, writing is easier than speaking. I can take the time to make deliberate word choices and edit those choices. When I’ve had a good night’s sleep, I do ok in person. I am probably never as clear as I think I am except in those rare moments of controlled rage when I manage to say the things I want to say exactly how I mean to say them. Perhaps the adrenaline helps. That seems like a reasonable assumption based on the drugs used to improve kids’ attention spans. (But that’s another tangent or possibly two tangents, not necessarily on the same curve.) I am easily distracted, but that’s not the same as having an attention problem. I don’t think.
Back to bad word choices. My husband and I were recently driving through one of the wealthy Boston suburbs (one of the Ws) and drove past a pack of teenagers waving signs and shouting at passing cars. If you’re thinking car wash, you guessed it. There were easily 12-15 of them on the corner attempting to raise money for a 9-11 memorial. I know that because one of them was holding a sign that said “help impact the 9-11 memorial.” My reaction to this was slow…very, very slow. I mean I’m pretty quick most days, but this was…wow, really? Did they really say that?
Not only is “impact” the most overused word of this and the last few years, but I’m struggling to think of a word that could be less appropriate in the context of a 9-11 memorial. We want to support, build, raise (not raze) a 9-11 memorial. We do not want to have any sort of impact on it whatsoever. We may want to have a positive impact on fundraising efforts, but that is not the same thing, and that’s not what the sign said.
Words can be trendy. I get that. I’m just as guilty of following the trends as the next person. Often those trends relate to slang or neologisms that spread through casual conversations or evolving business practices. All perfectly natural. I am especially prone to overusing slang when my stress dyslexia kicks in. It’s the propagation of misused and meaningless words that I find intolerable.
I blame consultants (like me) for the proliferation of empty jargon. In fact, I had a boss about five or six years ago who used the word impact so frequently, it’s possible that he is Patient Zero for the Impact virus. The fact that this disease has spread among children is a travesty of the highest order in my opinion.
It makes me wonder how this happened. Are their teachers responsible for not teaching them proper grammar? Is it because they are too lazy to understand the difference between affect and effect? Is it not enough for them to affect something or to have an effect on it? Is the physical implication of registering an impact, landing a blow, or creating a crater just too much to resist? Should I be blaming video games?
Seriously, maybe this all stems from kids sitting around too much and not being active enough. They don’t do verbs. They are avatars. In the real world they actually are. They feel compelled to add the “actually.” Perhaps because they spend too much time in virtual reality. This has spread to grown-ups as well. We don’t believe that something has happened unless it has actually happened. Not figuratively. Not basically or generally. It literally, actually happened.
I’m not sure which of these word phenomena I hate more. The effect on our culture is ridiculous. And I mean that in the original definition of the word: deserving of ridicule. In case you’ve forgotten, ridicule is a bad thing, not a good thing (unless you’re from the school of thought that believes any attention is good attention). Calling a thing ridiculous used to be derogatory. Now it’s so bad it’s good. I don’t have a problem with that. Not really. Except when I’m tempted to order the Ridiculous Sundae at Emack & Bolio’s, I want to know if it’s so ridiculous that it’s good or so ridiculous that it’s bad. Is it so yummy and bad for me that I have to have it, or is it so bad for me that I will regret it in the morning? I really need an answer to this question, people. For reals, has anyone tried one? Did it make you sick? Should I run right out and order one now? I need to know so badly, it’s ridiculous.
It bet it’s awesome. That’s traditionally my go-to word. Similar to ridiculous, awesome is a word I use a lot and often mean sarcastically. Even I know it’s difficult to tell when I’m using the word sincerely. And then there was the whole ironic awesome story. This one is worth the digression, trust me…
Mr. Snarky and I were in Seattle for July 4 visiting friends from college and their new baby, SBJ. After SBJ went to bed, our host and hostess invited a crowd of friends over for dinner. As the wine flowed, the conversation turned to Turntable (hah, no pun intended there). Our host was streaming music from the music sharing site, and we were discussing how it worked, specifically the Lame and Awesome buttons. One of the guests made a joke about frequenting a room (the Turntable lingo for a radio station) that occasionally included songs from Journey and REO Speedwagon.
If you’re wondering what’s wrong with that, think of any overplayed song from the early 80s. You’re remembering how much you loved those songs at the time. And you’re secretly thinking they were kind of awesome, right? But something else is happening in the back of your brain. Most of you would be embarrassed to admit that you ever listened to (forget admitting that you liked) those songs when they were current. Just thinking about it makes you cringe, right? Well that’s how the dinner conversation went. After another bottle or three of wine, someone suggested that what Turntable really needs is an Ironic Awesome button for those moments when you just “Can’t Stop Believing.”
We’ve become such a jaded, sarcastic, world-weary society that we don’t want to click Like. We want a Dislike button on Facebook. And we want an Ironic Awesome button on Turntable. We want it so badly that these words had to be spoken later in the evening, “John, you know there’s not really an Ironic Awesome button, right?” John [name changed to protect the gullible] was silent for a spell, and without a hint of embarrassment hung his head in disappointment. I laughed so hard, I cried. It was awesome.
Here’s the catch. There are [actually] things in real life that inspire awe: the Grand Canyon, the Eiffel Tower, Table Mountain. These are things that must be experienced with all of your senses. Watching the Travel Channel on a big screen tellie is not enough. Standing at the edge of the Grand Canyon on a 100 degree day in a spot where you cannot see the other side or the bottom or either end while wondering how long your water will last…standing under the Eiffel Tower and bearing witness to the gray-brown metalwork holding it all up, the three elevators it takes to reach the top, the whirling-vertigo feeling of standing below and craning your neck up, searching for the topmost spire…these things are truly awe inspiring.
Climbing Table Mountain on a summer afternoon in December (Southern-hemisphere summer) thinking of a friend who made it to Cape Town and didn’t do the climb and a friend of a friend who mistook the conditions and was overcome by fast-moving weather that changes in the blink of an eye from clear and dry to heavy and wet with poor visibility and unsafe climbing and dire consequences…these are things that must be experienced firsthand. How else would you appreciate that the walk up is cut into the side of the mountain like a staircase? The steps are [ridiculously] steep, requiring you to reach a hand to the cool, dusty stone and pull yourself up. How else could you grasp the perspective from the top across wild, unfamiliar ocean as the fog rolls in and the temperature drops twenty degrees if you can’t [actually] stand there and feel the breeze on your face? How else would you taste the sea on the wind or register the hue of the water or comprehend the scale of the Cape and its city if you don’t [actually] experience it yourself?
It’s not ironic awesome. It is awesome.
Visualizing Shakespeare 