I have a lot of pet peeves. This I know and, well....whatever.
However, I feel compelled to tell the universe how I feel regarding the lack of ability (within the general population) to correctly use the English language in an intelligent and thoughtful way. Let's face it, embrace it, and erase it - the funk of the grammatically lazy, that is. When did mediocrity become the norm?
Has anyone else even noticed that the practice of intelligent speaking has truly taken a nose dive over the last 10-20 years. 'I mean', just listen to us!
- Lazy speech patterns
- The overuse of words in sentences taking the place of "um" and "uh" and the rest - specifically the words "like" and "so", and the phrase "I mean"....when the speaker hasn't even said anything of note requiring clarification
- Saying "hashtag" to bring an air of importance to some trivial subject matter
- Inventing other uses for a word(s), when it isn't necessary, to get the meaning across; i.e. - a "life hack" is NOT the same as a tip or shortcut or a unique solution share
- The needless (and stupid) use of certain other words to shortcut the need for inserting a little grey matter into the conversation - which is why I am here today
This is how routine affects us; absorbs us from the inside until we get consumed by it and get comfortable with repetitive patterns and accept changes along the way.Seriously?!
Let's try this:
"...absorbs us from the inside until we are consumed by it and become comfortable with repetitive patterns..."
Quite frankly, there are a small number of ways that sentence could have been better constructed, but it wasn't. Don't even get me started on the poor punctuation. [slow burn]
Sadly, the lazy and improper use of language is becoming more disappointing with every passing year. The word "get" has found its way into most sentences any more, when so many other perfectly suited words would do a much better job communicating, informing, and delivering content. What are we so afraid of that we can't even hire people to type up news stories on television for our 'talking heads' to say in front of a camera? Or, are our newscasters presenting the news in a rogue fashion, and they themselves can't construct a proper sentence?
It's horrifying to know there are horrible English students (with deplorable speaking habits) wending their way through college and gaining accreditation to teach young, pliable minds. Once youngsters are subjected to these new lazy and improperly speaking teachers, who's left to reverse the damage? Who will monitor the decline of intelligence and work to reverse it? There are an equal amount of parents who also speak poorly, so there will be no help for the coming generations of kids to recognize the issues and reverse the trend.
How are we to "life hack" our way out of this trouble? MacGyver has retired.
Don't blame your mobile phone (or other electronic device) for messing up a conversation and inadvertently causing issues due to its "spellcheck" feature, if you are the sort of lazy idiot who can't be bothered to even attempt to spell a word correctly - or remember the correct uses for "your", "you're", "their", "they're", and "there" (among others). But these are matters for another time and place.
