Lexical Lament

First Published: 2 February 2006

One of the most horrifying aspects of modern life, some people agree, is the egregious and oftentimes macabre misuse of language. The commonness of lexical slips in popular parlance is indicative of a subversive, general perversion of the language. This is exemplified by the pervasiveness of sub par sub-species like Ebonics and Albertan. Too many conversationalists, with their lazy, wide-eyed tongues, get entangled in webs of dangling modifiers and split infinitives, leading them down a dangerous slippy-slope to certain embarrassment, if not suicide (social, not actual). Beyond these considerations, however, is the hard reality that speaking well isn’t really considered well in our times. Plebian parlance has infected the popular consciousness.

How baneful are the trills of Valleyspeakers, verbifying nouns and ‘like, omigod’-ing willy-nilly! All too frequently can we recount screechy, elongated monologues by speakers chronicling how they ‘were like totally making out on every lamppost on St Cat’s!’ With much shock and awe do we witness dialogue that substitutes pronouns for verbs, ignores standard conjugations, and eliminates subject-verb agreement: ‘My mother she bigger than you. She always do crazy things. She going to knock you out.’ It’s not only English that suffers this proverbial deflowering, though. Every vernacular perpetrates on its mother tongue such oedipal crimes.

The seminal issue here is that language is tied intimately to humanity. It is our larynxes and uvulas that make possible the transmission of ideas that distinguish human intercourse. Without proper parlance, attempts at communication would be as useful as a blind man looking out a window. Just imagine if people who spoke the same language (ostensibly) didn’t understand each other!

Consider the following actual conversation I experienced. In response to a query regarding her occupation, She says to He: ‘I just passed the bar exam.’ ‘Oh,’ replies He, ‘I didn’t realise becoming a barmaid required such rigour.’ She looks at him askance, and offers a corrective: ‘No, I just completed an actuarial-related law degree.’ He says, surprised, ‘Wow, the laws of bird-keeping. That’s really, um, interesting.’ What a nitwit, She thinks to herself! ‘No,’ She squawks, ‘my degree is in insurance and tax law!’ ‘Ah, taxonomy,’ He nods, with a wink and a smile.

How absurd. Where has gone our understanding of the language? Do we have such impoverished linguistic ability that we can no longer understand each other? Have our language skills degenerated so well that (not so) simple conversation is thrust into the realm of the imbecilic? In our quest for the bottom line and the bottom dollar, have we settled for bargain basement parlance as well? Has our standard been lowered so high that the most acceptable communications are typified by unwitting abuses at best and somewhat-syllables at worst? Has the paramountcy of the plebian become so thorough that turning a phrase is now as verboten as turning a trick (though, perhaps not in Montreal)?

What all this speaks of is our submission to an increasingly rapid pace of life, which supports a worldview that indulges, and even pampers, inability: allowing people to get away with avoidable mistakes speaks to the acceptance of improper or incomplete education. Of course, education is a scarce commodity, which is lamentable. But, when moderately educated individuals subvert the language, either through active or passive support, then we run the risk of becoming the victims of a diluted social intelligence. This, in turn, inhibits the sophisticated understanding of our lives and times that is so important in our small, small world. After all, without the use of proper subjects and predicates, attempts to come to know one another would be like a broken pencil: pointless.

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