R.I.P English – Where did we go wrong?

By Dominick Delgadillo
The Guardsman

For my own reasons
I try not to judge people. I do my best to keep an open and accepting mind to each culture’s idiosyncrasies. My one fall-back that places me into a deep, dark, Neanderthal rage is when people misuse the English language.

I’m sure if I knew any other languages, I’d be a stickler for those as well, but my Spanish is minimal, and my French is hardly better. I don’t find it wrong to be pretentious about this one particular topic—aside from music, movies, and pizza—because our ability to communicate is, regardless of the impending cliché, what separates us from the animals.

So here we are
What I hope to do here is give you some insight into the the thoughts that go through my mind as I hear everyday people chatting in a manner I can only describe as elementary. No, that doesn’t mean they derive from the periodic table, nor am I making some half-hearted attempt at a Sherlock Holmes reference. To put it simply: Every day I find that grown adults speak like grade school children.

Not a day goes by that I don’t hear a banshee’s pained squeal as a nonsensical, poorly structured sentence penetrates the typically busy world of thoughts in my head, distracting me from the outside world. Here is where I finally get to tear these sentences open and lay out their guts to show everyone where things went wrong.

Think of this as a man on the street interview—or our formally popular column “On the Record”—but people don’t know they’re on the record, and privy to a few corrections.

The Offending Party
In a paltry attempt not offend to any particular individual who was unlucky enough to let slip a sentence that makes me want to release the Hounds (of the Baskervilles), I instead decided to go after an entire generation of misused terms.

1) “Whatcha talkin’ ‘bout?”— While I certainly can’t place all the blame on the continued popularity of this term on Gary Coleman, he did have a hand in it. However, Gary Coleman died, so let us all, let’s just say in his honor, retire this term from our daily vernacular. It’s a senseless, lazy manner used to explain you don’t understand something. People are often too afraid to simply state, “I don’t understand,” so they jump to this ‘70s catch phrase to portray they are too cool for school. Ironically, that’s where they would’ve learned how to speak properly … one would hope.

2) “Naw what I’m sayin’?”— Ah, the amazing counterpart to the aforementioned fossil of speech is all too often used in place of decently organized thoughts. Rather than further explain yourself in any useful manner, you end a poorly structured argument or explanation with a question in hopes of once again using the language’s status to yield a “yeah,” rather than my oft response of: “No. I don’t speak that language … because you’re talking out of your ass.”

3) “That’s a no-brainer”— Nerds love this one. Nerds come in all shapes and sizes. One of them is currently writing an article on the sad nature of daily speech. Certain nerds seem to think if they can solve a problem or understand a concept, that anyone who doesn’t is somehow inept or is, as this phrase suggests, without a brain. Stop thinking you’re better than everyone and try teaching rather than judging.

So what?
I’m not claiming to be better than any of you, and I’m sure folks with a keen eye and hopefully a sharp wit will tear everything I just said to pieces, but I have a point to make, and I’m not going to let any of you stop me.