Poetry & Blindfolds

Many people I know say they wish they had been born in another era, and I am no exception.  I, too, wish they had been born in another era.  So I wouldn’t have to hear about it.

I am pleased to have been alive in a time when computers were big, mythic devices, twice the size of their white-coated masters, with reel-to-reel tapes spinning and buttons all a-flashin’.   You’d see such a monolith in only two venues: on the news and in movies (either sci-fi or disaster films, and the computers would be hooked up to monitors that had rounded edges).  It was in those days that I cultivated an imagination, which is one of the few possessions of mine that, these days, doesn’t hurt when bent.

If there’s one thing I’m not fond of in this era is the slang.

The slang of the 1950′s was oddly poetic and evocative of not only the birth of rock and roll but the Beat Generation.  Back then, you didn’t drive off in your car, you “agitated the gravel.”  A woman didn’t have a good body, she had a “classy chassis.”  It was in this era that farewells were embodied in the couplet, “see ya later alligator / after a while, crocidile.”

The 1960′s, the Beat Generation still reverberated through the world of slang, but the terms became more feeling-based and less poetic.  Something wasn’t great, it was “far out.”  Someone wasn’t sad, they were “bummed out.”  You weren’t asked to leave, you were asked to “flake off.”  If a story droned on too long, someone might interject with “meanwhile, back at the ranch.”

Back to computers for a second.  The big difference between me then and me now is I don’t really know how the things work.  In high school, I learned the two big computer programming languages – BASIC and FORTRAN, which fell out of favor eventually.   My greatest computer skill in 2009 is to ask my girlfriend if she has a moment to figure out why my laptop froze.

There’s been a drop-off in intelligence. 

And now we can get back to today’s slang.

Things are not definite, they are “fo sho.”   Things are not certain, they are “mos def.”  Things are not attractive, they are “hawt.”  You are not you, you are “u.”  You are not alright, you are “aiight.”  If you are agreed with, you are asked, “I know – right?”, as if the other person is requesting agreement with agreeing with you.  You do not address people, you address “bitchezzzz”.

Color me 43, but I can gauge a slight downward trend in slang from the 1959 to 2009.  As a script writer, I would only use such words and phrases if I was writing dialogue for a mentally challenged person – and wanted to be very obvious about it. 

Nurse: Tommy, it’s 10am.  Time for your walk around the grounds.
Mentally Challenged Patient: I know – right?

Since all slang is evocative of the society that produces it, I fear that being lazy – or more accurately, being perceived as being lazy – has become far too important.  That, somehow, having enough disrespect for language makes one an embodiment of confidence, or “gangsta.”   I confess that my first thought, whenever I come across such people, is that of job security.  Because today’s slang is so immersive, there’s no chance that anyone who uses it seriously could take my job. 

Of course, the main reason I don’t like the current slang comes down to one thing: the incredulous looks I get when I try.  I said “mos def” once to my friend Melissa, and it’s a story we still recount today.  “I remember when you said that,” she will say, “and I was, like, what the fuck are you doing?”  I was only trying to be a hep cat.  Kthxbai.