I’m aging. I don’t like it. Mostly because I think like an eighteen year old. Walking past a mirror and seeing my dad looking back usually snaps me back to the reality of true age. I even catch myself saying things like, “I remember when – not that long ago – we didn’t have cellphones….” or make some other reference that my kids or young employees can’t wrap their brains around. It’s the natural order. The timeline. But I don’t have to like it…or accept it… or pretend to adapt. I suppose my parents felt the same way.
There are so many changes from when I was a kid; some good, some bad. Oddly I’ve developed some kind of heightened sensitivity for things that don’t fit my age-associated constructs. In the end it’s nothing more than societal evolution. But I think if I could have a beer with Chuck Darwin he’d agree that not every limb on the evolutionary tree is sound enough to support a swing, much less the rope that holds it.
There are dozens of human inputs that ping my senses constantly. Abercrombie cologne. Skin artwork. Crucifixion-like human piercings that would get you thrown in jail for cruelty if done to a pet and not self-inflicted. But the one I’ve become most sensitive to – like a painful ear flick – is language. It’s pervasive and I haven’t been able to adapt. Fortunately my kids were trainable. They have learned the difference in verb tenses and know instinctively when something sounds stupid.
It’s everywhere. You’d think that news broadcasters would have a handle on the English language, yet I get ear-flicked daily with words I’m compelled to look up and can’t find even on urbandictionary.com . And then there’s Jenna Lee on Fox News. Kickin’ beautiful but I have to mute her voice and just watch her smile and toss her hair. She doesn’t pronounce T’s, replacing them with the now acceptable English equivalent… the “D.” “Looooooooook…. Id’s a cuuuuude liddle kidden!” And now that Russia is constantly newsworthy, “Vladimir POOOOOODEN.”
Then there’s the “Less” man posing as a doctor on some TV commercial targeting men with enlarged prostates. “Are you peeing during the night? Pee less times if you take PeeLess.” REALLY “LESS” TIMES? Not “fewer.” “Less.” Less, because we’re less smart than we were fewer years ago than we care to admit.
But the language ear flick that has become the most painful is inflicted by what I can only refer to as the Waah Waahs: A new twig on the evolutionary oak, nurtured into existence by the dumbing down of education through Common Core and the lazy-river success strategy of “retakes.” You’ve met Waah Waahs. You know at least one Waah Waah. You might be living with a Waah Waah and have become desensitized, like becoming hard of smelling after living near a landfill.
What’s a Waah Waah? It’s a person, male or female (typically pre and post-pimple young) that add a “waah” suffix to parts of normal speech for what I assume is emphasis. It’s the linguistic equivalent of an emoticon in a three word text. They stick them everywhere. For emphasis. 😀
You still have no idea what I’m talking about. OK, here are a couple examples. While speaking with a young hostess at a restaurant, I mentioned how nice it was outside. “I knowaah!” She responded enthusiastically. (“Knowaah” pronounced like the great great granddaddy of crazy boat builders.)
I catch myself squinting when they talk.
“Goaah,” meaning to leave.
“Stayaah,” meaning to hang out.
“Come onaah,” emphatically urging someone to hurry up.
And it’s constant. Like they have a match to blow out after every sentence. It’s so much extra work.
Whyaah? Whyaah? For the love of Godaah! Why do they talk like thataah?
I’m hopin’ it’s a fad. Like the Valley Girl thing in the 80’s. Or mullets. Or beach Speedos. But I’m realistic. It’s gonna stick. Evolution’s twisted damaged branch pointing the wrong direction and surviving in spite of the effects of gravity and natural selection. Like sloths… or kangaroos… or flamingoes with their backward knees.
I knowaah. I knowaah. I have to let it goaah. Not think about little stuff so muchaah.
A+