Ready or not, it comes anyway
May 26, 2011 (Thursday)
When I was about 11 years of age, I was given a dictionary. It was published during W.W.II and was made of inferior paper, etc. because materials for domestic use were in short supply. I think I still have it, unless it has been thrown away within the past few years. The remarkable characteristic of the 69-year-old dictionary is the list of words that are not in it. Our language is constantly changing, and the new dictionaries include words we had never heard of, back in 1942.
Every new edition of a dictionary includes new words. The newest editions all include “Dot-com,” a word not even imagined just a few short years ago. The word, “24-7,” and the expression, “senior moment” have also been recently added.
Changes have been made in the past. Not to be found in my ancient dictionary are the words and expressions, “atom bomb,” “baby-sit,” and “cheeseburger.” And you won’t find “brainstorm” or “do-it-yourself.” The last part of the 20th Century brought “area code,” “doofus,” “glitch,” “junk food,” “airhead,” “wannabe” and “carjacking,” among many others.
Every once in a while I think about old Rip Van Winkle, who went to sleep as a colonist and woke up after the American Revolution in a brand new world. If he had gone to sleep in 1942 and woke up today, he’d probably die of shock. At the very least, he would have difficulty in understanding ordinary conversations on the street.
The one unchanging fact of life is that everything is always changing. Are you “cool” with that?