The Quickening

I run the risk of seeming like a stuffy old fart today, but it’s a risk I’m willing to take.

It all started with the “f” in the word “of”. A whole generation is dropping that f and because young people drive pop culture, language, trends, you name it, and nobody over 30 wants to appear unhip, it now seems like everyone is dropping the f. Even in news reports, it has become “the House Ah Commons”. This doesn’t even save time! It’s just lazy. And here’s where the old fart comes in.

I vividly remember the first time I received an e-mail from someone old enough to know better, telling me she was off to visit the ‘rents. I knew immediately what she meant, but was it so difficult to add a “pa”? In fact, it was just one more character since she had gone to the trouble to put a ‘ on the front.

Some of the words previously shortened only in print are now making their way into verbal language. Take debs, sibs and photogs for example. Please. In my Variety Headline News on Monday, they referred to the top movies preferred by auds. Auditoriums? Audacity? Audio? No, audiences, natch.

I accept that language is fluid and will continuously evolve, and that my generation is now of an age where we are forced to stand helplessly by clutching our dictionaries as it does so. I’m used to hearing “no problem” instead of “you’re welcome” after I say “thank you”. It makes sense that a chunk of new members of the workforce that doesn’t know a time without the internet will be a little less patient and want to quicken the pace of information exchange. And although I may have to leap into this swirling river of change if I want to stay relevant and prove to the world that I am not, indeed an old fart…I still don’t have to like it!