I've discovered something that irritates me. Not surprising, really. After all, I'm sitting in a high school right now. I have discovered a... distortion... of the English language that I think is just nuts.
Every generation has their own language, their own adjectives. For our/my generation the words were "cool", "sweet", "awesome", "wicked", and "l33t". Other hip happening words were "groovy", "tight" and "gnarly". These, in their own way, are distortions of the English language. The words were not being used as they were intended; the meaning was changed. However! These words remained as adjectives. Their caste did not change.
In Digital Media, I have been hearing some boys use the word "beast". They say things like, "That's beast!" or "Doesn't this look beast?". I understand that each generation is going to come up with its own language. I respect that fact. That use of the word, though, feels like sandpaper going across my literary ear. It sounds wrong. If the boys had said, "I'm a beast" or "This thing looks like a beast", I'd have been fine. But what they're doing is a deliberate perversion. They're using a noun as an adjective! How idiotic do you have to be to do that? Ugh. It boggles the mind. Their use of the English language... far from beautiful. Just beast.
Here's a late addition (forgot to put this up yesterday evening). First line from a student's paper: "I am fist gonad..." ... Nuff said.
*face palm* Another word bites the dust.
ReplyDeleteI just watched "Glee". The new football coach is a burly woman whose last name is pronounced "beast". That's the picture I'll have in mind if I ever hear a kid say that.
Heh, I still use a lot of those words, too. All of them, in fact.
ReplyDeleteThe perversion of the English language makes me cry inside.