She sat there, dressed casually, as most college students are. I can’t remember why she was in my office. I do remember the uneasy feeling that remained about that conversation.
This was a young woman, as I remember, a few months away from graduation, an embarkation into an adult experience, trying out her college-acquired 1,000-word vocabulary which apparently included 5,000 “likes.”
“Like, I loved my poly sci botany classes, especially like those where we like could get like involved.”
I wondered how her writing fared? How did she make up for the use of the word “like”?
Now, I know that language changes. For instance, in Latin, the word egregius means distinguished, meritorious, but somehow it has come to mean the opposite. Someone who is described as egregious is someone who is conspicuously bad. In my lexicon, the word “like” has several connotations. Among them, like expresses preference, e.g. I like to read nonfiction. It is used as the introduction to a simile, e.g. Her speech was like a broken record. What function does the ubiquitous “like” perform for this young woman and so many others? Is it a more verbal form of … uh … a kind of place holder in speech while your brain processes your next thought? What?
Needless to say, my antiquated knowledge of the English language prevented me from staying on task and I completely lost the train of whatever thought it was she shared.
And then, how would you diagram a sentence with all of those likes? Talk about an antiquated activity … but one I loved.
Then she went past whatever border her language barrier created. She described the bus ride to my office as “awesome.” God, speaking to Moses through the burning bush is awesome; a spectacular sunset is awesome. Riding a Centro bus is not. Please!
This enthusiastic college senior is not the only trespasser in language land. Someone has stolen the power of hyperbole. Now, for those of you who have forgotten, hyperbole is the use of language to exaggerate. In that sense there is good hyperbole and bad hyperbole. The use of the word awesome, which should be associated with truly spectacular awe-filled occurrences, has been relegated to a much-diminished usage as the way to describe a smoothie at Duncan Donuts.
Another sadly diminished use of a word is that currently being adopted by Americans seeking to copy their Irish and British cousins use of “brilliant.” Einstein was brilliant. My English professor at SU was brilliant. The morning sun is brilliant. Yet, I hear Americans using this word to describe even the most pedestrian, the most ordinary events.
When a job well done is described as amazing, one has to ponder whether the speaker expected less, and therefore was bowled over by an adequate performance, or whether he or she has fallen into the habit of demeaning the power of words.
A paint job is only amazing or awesome if it was done by Leonardo Da Vinci. Otherwise a good job is a good job.
As the range of meaning for such words expands, their initial power is diminished. So I have to search for words that can convey that specialness, that out of the ordinary, that breathtaking quality that should be set apart by words.
Like, say … like, incredible.
