Tuesday, May 20, 2008

OMG, this is, like, SO wack!

Author/historian David McCullough in a graduation speech:

“Please, please do what you can to cure the verbal virus that seems increasingly rampant among your generation,” he said, slamming the “relentless, wearisome use of words” such as like, awesome and actually.

“Just imagine if in his inaugural address John F. Kennedy had said, ‘Ask not what your country can, you know, do for you, but what you can, like, do for your country actually.’”


I use all those words. I also translate speeches. But those turns of phrase don't end up in the speeches I translate because they're inappropriate to the speaker and the context. I'll use it when I'm talking to a colleague trying to work out exactly how to word something. "This needs to be, like, more assertive but not assholic. Right now it's kind of, you know, [insert hand-waving to express my point]." But the final product will be intelligent and articulate and the right level of language and even sound masculine if the speaker is male. The fact that I use the linguistic constructions of my demographic in my own everyday speech does not negate my ability to do this.

This isn't new information. Everyone can do this. You can talk dirty. You can also describe a sexual health complaint to your doctor in clinical terms. You could probably talk like a lolcat if you really wanted to. You can also do your job every day without ever betraying the fact that you can talk like a lolcat. Just because you can swear like a motherfucker doesn't mean you can't also have a completely appropriate conversation with a child without a single swear in it. Anything I say or write comes out in English unless there's a reason not to, but I can still throw together a decent business letter in French.

If this were a regular 74-year-old man talking, I wouldn't expect him to grok or care about this nuance. But from an author I expected better. An author should be aware that people have access to different levels and types of language for different contexts.

2 comments:

laura k said...

I suppose that's his way of complaining about language debasement, which runs rampant in people of all ages. I agree. It's a lame argument. I wonder if McCoullough is turning into a curmudgeon.

Anonymous said...

I'm a little younger than McCullough--but a lot older than his audience.

I have noticed this tiresome trend of attacking "young people today" on style/speech issues getting steadily harsher and louder.

Part of the "reason" is that when we were young we were attacked relentlessly -- on style/speech issues -- by virtually all older people in our world...bosses, parents, teachers. Everyone over 40 had a license to sneer, if memory serves.

As I do the math, I see that those people are now surely dead. We resented them for their pointless sniping and learned nothing but alienation from being bashed constantly.

I can't believe that my peers don't remember how this felt. So WHY are we passing it on? Is it some kind of social-critic pension where hating youth is a thing you get to do after a certain age?

Personally, I'm not joining. Customs, styles, and language continue to change and always have, yet so far humanity has survived.

You're right...SO wack. I thought better of McCullough.