Acid9.net

What an inflammatory title for a blog post, eh?

I bet that half of you have clicked on this post expecting a rant on how the “txt generation” is mauling the English language and that linguistical purity should be enforced at gunpoint like so many Nazi incursions into foreign lands in times past?

The other half of you that have clicked on this link probably feel the exact same way, since it’s likely only one person has actually read this post, and if the same person had differing viewpoints on the same subject then that would be kinda worrying.

Well, you are both wrong.

Just a small caveat before we proceed: I freely acknowledge that the English language is founded on the adoption of slang and the misuse of standard vernacular – whether a result of conflicting values of the times, or the propagation of mind viruses (or “memes” as the kids call them these days), the words we spoke proper today come from the medieval equivalent of kids posting “ROFLOLZORZ” on Gaia forums to lolcat pictures.

I don’t have a problem with this – generally the evolution of language can be tracked back to current or popular trends of the day and, well, ‘the times, they are a changin’.

The following words, however, are born of ignorance, laziness, or adopted from sources so obscure, so lame, that it is like trying to watch a Dr Phil marathon on “Understanding your Teenagers”.

Guesstimate

First up on the chopping block is this farce of a word. The first time I heard it I actually asked for clarification -

“you mean “estimate?”, I asked.

“uhhh… yeah” was the reply.

I figured it was some sort of aberration in spacetime, so I left it at that.

Then I started to hear the word in regular usage – every now and then some grinning idiot in a suit trying to impress someone would use it in a sentence. This started to really bother me, until one day I actually asked a friend of mine (who was coincidentally also the biggest perpetrator i could find at the time) what in all fuck he actually thought he was talking about when he dropped the “G” bomb up in this bitch.

“uhhh… its like, an estimate, you know… except its just a guess.”

Did we all of a sudden get transported to a time when language has lost all meaning, and we can just fucking make up words “willy nilly” and expect people to understand what we are talking about?

Can I walk into Hungry Jacks and order a ‘Flibble Flobble Floo’ and expect to get a Western Whopper?

We already have a perfectly serviceable word for guesstimate.

Do you wanna hear it??

Estimate: an approximate calculation of quantity or degree or worth; “an estimate of what it would cost”; “a rough idea how long it would take”

Morons.

Prolly

To be fair, I have only really ever heard this utterance from one particular individual, who is more than likely going to be reading this at some point in the near future.

I have taken the liberty of crafting a special message for this person below -

FUCK YOUUUU!!!!!111!!

THAT WORD IS GAAAYYYYYY!!!11!!one!!!

It sounds like something an 8 year old girl would say. Remember when you were a kid, and there was that annoying rich little chit with red or flaxen hair, WAY too many freckles, driven to school by her dad in his Jag, and always wore those shitty sandals and stupid floppy hats to school?

Now SHE would say “Prolly”, all the while grinning around her soggy ass vegemite sandwich that her mum threw together in between her yoga session and bitching to her girlfriends about how her husband never satisfies her in bed?

I swear, I would head butt that little girl if I ever saw her (and, well, if she actually existed).

Sammich

See above, but instead of an 8 year old girl, “sammich” sounds like something a 3 year old toddler would say because they don’t know any better, or because their aunties all coo and declare “how cute!” while stuffing her little face full of old “Roses” chocolates that have been sitting in their cupboards since the mid 80s.

it is entirely possible that this toddler grows up to be our little 8 year old girl.

Tags: words