Wordplay

By Al Horn

A friend and I were talking at work the other day when we heard a young woman in a nearby hallway exclaim to another woman, "you are so busted."

My friend immediately asked, "What is with that? How can you be so busted? Busted is busted. There are no varying degrees."

"Apparently, the two ladies would disagree," I returned. "They both seemed to understand what was being said."

We turned the corner and saw the two women in an animated conversation. My friend smiled and said, "well, obviously they do, but it's not proper use of the English language."

He had a point; to a varying degree. What constitutes proper English nowadays? The English language is in constant flux. Idioms come and go. A word that is a noun today is tomorrow's verb or adjective.

Aside from what you read in newspapers or professional journals, you don't often encounter properly structured sentences. Is it because we as Americans have become sloppy or do we just want to be fashionable? Thought of in that respect, it makes a lot of sense. Fashions are constantly changing so why not the language. In many ways, the idioms of the day simply reflect everyday changes in lifestyles. As some one creates a new look at the way we see things, labels tend to change causing new ways of describing what we now perceive.

If you are a futurist, it just comes with the job. On the other hand, if you are stuck in some remote part of the world for a period of time, you may return to changes that will make you appear... unenlightened. In my case it can be as simple as working a lot of overtime for a few weeks where I read little or watch very little television. I find myself overhearing conversations that make little or no sense until I get a chance to catch up on current events. The only thing worse than having your coworkers think you're out of touch is to come home and find out how much you have missed by the children in the house.

"Papa, you don't know who so-and-so is?" asked our six year old. "Don't you ever watch TV?" Even the two year old knew whom she was talking about. The wife would just smile as if I were the child.

Back to my friend at work. He prides himself on proper word usage. He and I had a spirited dialogue over what was the proper way to express oneself. We agreed that just because a word appears in the dictionary doesn't mean it can be inserted into any part of a sentence. He argued that words are not interchangeable. I told him that if two people perfectly understood each other despite our not having a clue doesn't mean the context is completely improper.

Considering his first response to that statement, I am glad that I was conversing with this particular colleague. Another coworker that often holds the written word dear would have responded differently. Though the sentiment would have been the same, I'm sure it also would have been Cheneyfied.