Words – Part One

Ever notice how words have changed with time? Well the words are the same but their meanings have changed and not necessarily for the better.
Just before the turn of the century, from the 19th to the 20th that is, this country was celebrating a time to be known for many, many years as the Gay Nineties. One hundred years later we were still celebrating, sort of, the Gay Nineties but with one incredibly different meaning.
In the bible, and recreated on the silver screen in Cecil B. DeMille’s “The Ten Commandments” Charlton, I mean Moses is so pleased with the land he finds after being expelled from Egypt that he decides to stay put and marry Tzipporah. He proclaims his love of the location by saying, “I shall dwell here.”
Dwell?
Doth anyone sayeth dwell anymore?
Imagine telling a real estate agent after a long day of showing off her available properties that in the last place you saw you will dwell. “Oookay, we’ll talk later.”
And how about some words we see every day that are extremely absurd and yet so common we don’t even seem to notice? A sign on a front lawn proclaims proudly, ‘House for sale – By Owner.’ WELL WHO THE HELL ELSE IS GOING TO SELL THE DAMN THING BUT THE OWNER? What do you expect, ‘House for sale by the neighbor two doors down on the left – I hate the guy?’
And when someone asks if they can ask you a question haven’t they already done so?
Or better yet they “axe you something.”
Please don’t axe me!
And while we’re on the subject how many mothers does it take to give birth to a child? If you think this is a dumb question let me axe you how many times have you heard someone say, “My moms told me…?”
In our current world the intensity of words has also changed. When a doctor tells you, “You may feel a little pressure” be prepared to die.
And in business, especially retail, words are used to trick you. Everyone flocks to a sale to pick up items they had no intention of buying in the first place just because they are 40% off.
Yeah well 40% off is still 60% on!
We live in a world of sound bites. Attention spans are so short that most of you stopped reading this diatribe a few paragraphs back. Naturally this upsets me but reality is reality.
And speaking of reality, how can you call a group of people placed in a remote area of the world forced to compete with strangers for the rights to come back to civilization with a million dollar prize merely because they were able to trick the others into voting against everyone else reality TV?
That is not reality. Everyone knows it’s really Politics!
Uh oh, I seem to have come back to politics so I better stop for now. I wouldn’t want to dwell on that subject too long.