YO’…DUDES AND DUDETTES…
(…a curmudgeon…is not some kind of fish!)

We’ve come to the realization that we must be what some folks consider “old” for the following reasons:

• We’re senior enough to rightfully call David Letterman…sonny boy.
  
• We now consider any woman under the age of 65…a hot young chick
  
• We now handle the petty annoyances of daily life…with a refined Louis XV attitude. That is…après moi le deluge…or in plain old English…I really don’t give a damn.
  

But the strongest evidence that we’ve become antique…or just a tad shy of being archeological…is our use of somewhat out of date vocabulary of the English language. This shouldn’t surprise anyone since our exposure to the complexities and intricacies of English came after learning our A, B, C’s…in French (which some who know us claim that’s why we still write English as it is spoken…in French).

Actually it really seems to be more of a generational difference in the way we were taught the use of language. In our time the methods used to teach how to read and develop the broadest vocabulary possible were quite rigorous. Proper enunciation, pronunciation, and diction were drilled into us, and the use of either slang or colloquial forms of expression, sternly discouraged. Of course such prohibitions…just made us that more determined to use these anyway (but only when our teachers and grownups weren’t around). So our way of expressing ourselves was eclectic to say the least…and depended on whom we were with at any given moment. Later, military service added its own colorful “vocabulary” to that mix.

Yet, the strongest influence on our developing effective use of the language was because from an early age we were an avid reader…in both languages. Our parents, and grandparents, all, were readers, so we grew up immersed in and surrounded by reading materials. Just about anything in print was read, so that widest range of material generated an even wider vocabulary which, in turn, created a stronger ability to coherently express ideas and thoughts. In short it gave us the ability to properly communicate with others…in the most appropriate way…depending on the circumstances involved.

The apparent deficiency in our current generation’s ability to do that is mostly due to the impact of today’s digital technology, which emphasizes iconography and visualization abilities thus making effective use of language, of secondary importance. The consequences of that (unintended no doubt), is that the use of language as a means of communication is now becoming more and more cursory, if not curt, full of acronyms strung together into some kind of incoherent jargon. Or so it seems to those of us who were of that former culture of the printed word.

All of this was brought home to us a short while ago when a young acquaintance asked what our views were on some social issues of the moment. Our gently teasing humorous response was to say…on those issues you might call us a “kindly curmudgeon” (for liberal Californians that’s probably equivalent to being a… compassionate conservative). His reaction was a surprise, as with a puzzled expression he asked: “What’s a curmudgeon…is that some kind of fish?”

C’est la vie!

CENTURION