Language Police

The nice thing about this blog is that the only person who really has to feel bad if there is nothing here is me. Isn’t that nice, you can enjoy this nice, empty space that’s right here guilt free! It would be wonderful if all of life were that way, but it seems to be an acute irony that the moments that are unfilled we must feel some guilt attached to it. Not only do we have the pain of emptiness, but we feel bad about having that emptiness altogether. A double dose of pain. It’s an interesting state of affairs.

That last paragraph made no sense, and certainly had no relevance to the short blog that I intend to write this evening, being Sunday, but will most likely not be posted until tomorrow evening, Monday. So it is that I begin this entry, yet another example of why it’s not good to spend too much time thinking. Almost anything can be humorous if you think about it long enough, or analyze anything enough.

For example, have you ever considered what would happen if the reactions we have to certain situations were literal? I mean, if what we say when most we’re surprised were taken literally, it could account for hours upon hours of amusement. Let’s say one of you sneak up on me, and catch me in one of my less guarded moments, the moments when I happen not to be taking great care of what issues out of my mouth. There is a wide variety of things I might say, some more vulgar or provocative then others, but for the sake of the blog, let us consider that I say something that for me is borderline expletive.

“Holey Crap!” might be the term used in this case (I honestly hope it wouldn’t, I’ve been trying to exterminate all those sorts of phrases from my own usage of vocabulage, but once and awhile this one does escape me.)

Now, apart from the humor of seeing me frightened, this particular phrase can be interesting if taken literally. Stop for a moment and think. By uttering this phrase, what am I suggesting? Am I suggesting that the fright was so great as to ensure the excretion of excrements (can I say that?)? Am I exclaiming at a rather remarkable sight? What would move me so as to exclaim something that seems completely unnecessary and inappropriate for the situation? What kind of an image do those words evoke? Obviously they’re meant to create more an emotion than an image (if you wish, go ahead and ponder on what my exclamation would look like if it were an explanatory clause describing an image), but those words seem to me to evoke more of a feeling of mild disgust than that of fright. Perhaps, if I were more literate, I would say something more along the lines of “Oh my beating heart!” Perhaps I might say “my jumping soul!” Or, if I was really feeling ambitious, I could say something a little longer, like “My heart pounds as if to leave my chest, my blood runs hot through all my veins. Oh fear, I know your name.” Though, honestly, you’d probably look at me pretty strangely if that were my reaction to being frightened.

The same curiosity holds true when you think of the uses of different adjectives and adverbs. The most unusual are expletives and mock expletives. Have you ever tried to explain in a different language what “dang” means? Telling someone that the tool you are using is only a little bit better than on the highway to hell doesn’t have quite the same affect as you might wish. Because the literal translations lose a little bit of the feeling in the language jump, it becomes difficult to come up with a proper replacement. For instance, in Spanish there’s a word that’s really quite offensive, but the literal translation for it is “guy,” or “gal,” respectively. When I get really mad, all I have to do to keep myself honest is look at someone and say: “You are such a guy!” Whereupon they look at me with an odd look, and then put me in a straight jacket. It would be really offensive in Spanish, but because the actual word is so silly, it means nothing once you change it.

Now, if you think about the various expletives used in modern society, it’s a lot of fun to think of the literal meaning of some of our more vocabulary challenged friends. When a four letter word is used every other word, it can make for a really interesting image. Try it sometime.

I personally think there should be a language police. When someone says something that is completely out of place (such as my holey excrement statement) there should be someone there to blow a whistle. “Foul! Flagrant misuse of an adjective!” It might make my life more interesting, but at least I wouldn’t worry as much about our slow revolution to the cave man setting of emoting through grunts. We would probably be more volatile, though, considering our history with music, and our grunts might even take on new levels as we bang our heads up and down, and then onto something, and then we would be unconscious.

I think the idea of language referees would be especially fun in relationships. Communication is hard enough in this world of wild and crazy people, and it might just help us all be better if we settled into using words that actually exist and can be used in a proper way. “Foul, exaggeration!” “Five minutes time out for flagrant use of cliché!” You might even have some really interesting calls: “Five point deduction for incapacity to form a complete sentence!”

You would be surprised the misuse that our language receives. These things should be taken care of. So, next time you hear an exclamation, don’t just think of the feeling, think of the meaning of the words use, and please don’t copy everyone else in their sillitude.

“Foul! Word invention!”