WORDS, THESE DAYS We are using up words faster today.
It seem to take far more of them to explain what they are and are not and to set new meanings or to firmly set new modes in our mind and memory. Isn't it true that we used to take on new words which entered our language gradually? It sometimes took years before some were "accepted" No more. Now, they are thrust upon us and we, in short order join, gleefully, it seems, in beating them to death with overuse.
It just might be that the technical nature of our society today may have added this tendency toward new words being contrived, but the new meanings of old words seem to outrun actual innovation's, I'm sure. When I was a youngster my folks ,when speaking of the street cars which operated suburbanly from the actual geographical limits of our City of Norfolk, Virginia to the beach resort strip called Virginia Beach, same state, called that street-car rail service "the shuttle" . I liked the sound of it because I knew a shuttle to a a wooden bobbin-like things that wiggled back and forth and got nowhere in knitting machinery. It seemed so apt to the idea of cars shuttling back and forth, day after day - going nowhere. Years later my brother and I, on a trip which for called us to fly from Washington, D.C. to New York City caused us to "take the shuttle". It was sort of loosely-scheduled airline connections by Eastern, as I recall, operating old, well-used Trans-Pacific "Constellations" which still had Pan-Am "Survival at Sea" things on their monogrammed seat covers. They departed when it appeared they had a full load ready. My grandchildren now speak of shuttles and do not feel it necessary to preceded the term with the word "space" We have really seen changes in the word "shuttle".
The advertising people, long ago, learned to get a good grasp on a word no one was using, and spread around to their particular business needs. Pretty soon everyone was using it and they were using a "buzz"" word .Such terms used to endure for years, but their span of life has been shortened by excess of radio, TV sage - and our own loose lips. Right now buzz word is:"awesome" with younger people' "anti-bacterial" with older folks. We over used "lipator","cholesterol," "chlorophyll"," lanolin", a host of shortened medical terms, word lifted from popular songs, and a few outright sillies back to where I remember when saying "twenty-three skidoo!" was "in". We also have a multitude of words coming in an out of the language which are cut-downs of long, technical names and designations. Some, will, in time, replace the long jawbreakers entirely. We should all be grateful that ours is growing language. Let's try to keep it that way even when we tire of buzz words. Try your hand and head at predicting what the overdone word will be one year from now. Write down your choice and check it next year at this time. You might hit it. Awesome!
We should count ourselves to be very fortunate to be living in a free nation which does not sponsor, favor or permit a national academy which determines and decrees which words shall be allowed to enter the language and which ones will be excluded.
A.L.M. February 20, 2005 [c577wds]
