The English language is in trouble. Last night I watched a terrifying movie, Idiocracy. This movie, which takes place in 2505, shows a world in which English has devolved into a combination of hillbilly, Ebonics and valley girl style speech. Anyone who uses "smart" words is deemed "faggy" and ridiculed. Is this a stretch? Lets take a look at some of the new entries into Webster's dictionary:
Ginormous: extremely large, humongous
Crunk: style of Southern rap music featuring repetitive chants and rapid dance rhythms
Flex-cuff: a plastic strip that can be fastened as a restraint around a person's wrists or ankles
Now, I am all for the evolution of language. I understand that it needs to be flexible enough to accommodate innovations and new inventions. But, ginormous is a word???
In a world of Jackass and Jerry Springer we need to be conscious that we are not inventing words rather than using our vocabularies. I don't want to live in a world where using real, meaningful words will make me the subject of ridicule.
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1 comment:
I love Idiocracy. It's a shame it didn't get a wider theatrical release. It's not a great film - I think Mike Judge could have done much more with it - but the thing I loved about it was how the absurdity of this fictitious future was very believable in terms of how society values pop culture knowledge over scholarship and schlock entertainment over artistry and creativity.
It's not unlikely that one day, we may see the "Ow! My balls!" channel on Comcast cable systems.
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