Blog #188--Creative Jargon Has Drawbacks

My wife was teaching a high school class recently, and she said the following to a student: “You don’t want to develop a reputation for shoddy workmanship.” Everyone in the class giggled, and my wife had no idea why. She thought the word “shoddy” referred to poor quality. But in 2016 jargon, it means a promiscuous girl. While there is an oblique similarity between the two definitions, there is enough difference to cause misunderstanding.

Every generation wants to separate itself from the rest of society. Their members' instinctive nature requires them to be different so they can claim they are better than the previous generations. One of many ways they distinguish themselves is with their language. The language in use today is far different than that used by my grandparents back in the early 20th century. If they were to come back to Earth today, they would have great difficulty understanding what people are saying.

I’ve already forgotten much of the jargon I learned when I was young and copying my elders. But a few examples include “grip,” what my father called his suitcase; “rocker room,” a living room with a rocking chair; “ice box,” a refrigerator that required the purchase of ice blocks to keep food cold; “percolator” to make coffee; “kit and kaboodle,” meaning the whole thing; and “horseless carriage.” Most people today might still understand what a horseless carriage is, but eventually it will become foreign to the average person.

My grandparents grew up around people born in the mid 19th century. Some of the phrases they heard growing up include “execution day,” meaning washing day; “dancers” meant stairs; “Jerry sneak,” a henpecked husband; “marriage music,” crying children; “whapper,” a large man or woman; and “light house,” a man with a fiery red nose.

Sexual expressions are numerous and change from generation to generation. Each generation becomes a little more direct in its statements about sex, but subtlety still has value. Creativity used to be essential since any sex talk was considered dirty and not condoned in polite society. Just a few phrases from the 19th century include “basket-making,” “bread and butter,” “brush,” “face-making,” “stitch,” “have one’s corn ground,” “get one’s ashes hauled,” and so on. Literally more than a 1000 words and phrases associated with sex and sexual body parts have been and are being used within the past 100 years.

Hip-Hop and Rap artists have been especially creative with word usage. Words they use for money include “dead presidents,” “bands,” “gwop,” “racks,” “fetti,” “scrilla,” “lettuce” and “chedda” or “cheddar.” Most of the inner city slang is ignored by the dictionaries, but even the Oxford English Dictionary has incorporated 5 such words within the past 12-15 years: “bling,” meaning expensive, ostentatious clothing and jewelry; “dope,” meaning very good; “phat,” which means excellent; “jiggy,” meaning uninhibited, especially sexually; and “twerk,” which is a form of sexually provocative dancing which includes thrusting hip movements.

Abbreviations have become extremely popular, especially with the advent of cell phones with texting features and social media such as Twitter, where there is limited space. Even us old folk have learned to use things like IMHO (in my humble opinion), IIRC (if I remember correctly), ROTFL (rolling on the floor laughing), BFF (best friends forever) and LOL (laughing out loud). Words are often spelled with letters if they sound similar. For instance, “how are you” becomes “how r u.”

Acronyms are especially abundant in medical terminology. ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder), COPD (Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease), ED (Erectile Dysfunction), MRI (Magnetic Resonance Imaging), CT or CAT scan (Computed Tomography), MD (Muscular Dystrophy), MS (Multiple Sclerosis), and many hundreds of additional acronyms are accepted substitutes. But they have also been used frequently for all subject matter. For instance, no one back when I was young called the President of the United States “POTUS.” We now use “GWOT” for the global war on terror, “TTP” for Trans-Pacific Partnership, “TTIP” for Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership and so on.

I suppose those reading this article in 2016 will be bored to this point since most of us are aware of these facts, and many are more aware than the author. But what I believe is most relevant is our constant desire to change jargon over time. Certainly, no one cares that people from 100 years ago wouldn’t be able to understand us if they returned to Earth. After all, that isn’t possible. But no generation, and that certainly includes the three or four that are alive today, think about how well our present language will be understood in the future.

All we think about is today. We assume our language is just right for us; it suits our purposes. The advent of the computer, the Internet, the cell phone and other advanced technologies has transformed much of how we think and how we speak with each other. But it has also caused problems about which we are not yet aware.

For instance, since all ages of school children in the United States are now using computers, they are being taught to type, not to write cursive. But those who cannot read cursive writing cannot benefit from any of the materials written longhand before the advent of computers. For instance, my grandmother wrote daily diaries for a number of years. Perhaps that is meaningless to most of us, but being able to read about her life could show us the many similarities between her life and ours. Some of our natural history will be lost.

I realize many people don’t want to find these connections, but they exist. If we don’t recognize them, we have lost something significant for our development. There are many writings more valuable than my grandmother’s diaries that will be inaccessible to those who lack an ability to read them.

And what happens after a major cataclysm, when we have lost electrical power? Or what if the Internet becomes censored or limited to a few for political reasons? This could happen any time. We aren’t far from that situation right now, although most people don’t realize it. We could find ourselves out on a limb, with a dictator or a wealthy oligarchy eager for us to fall. Most of us wouldn’t know how to create electricity or have access to equipment that could do it for us. And without the Internet and our dependence on social media, there would be lots of fearful, distressed people running around in a lonely panic.

I realize we are instinctively meant to make changes as we live. And I realize every generation will create its own language and lifestyles. We can’t stop that, nor should we try to do so. But it would help our children and their children if we keep them in mind when we are sharing our present. After all, that will be their history. We need to keep building bridges with the future so our offspring will have a chance to learn from our successes and failures. Otherwise, they might have to start their learning process from scratch.

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