As you folks know, I have been using deterioration of language skills
to track the speed at which human intellectual capacity diminishes.
What started out as a snarky satire on insufficient and unnecessary
ideas I was exposed to in the MLIS program at the U of W have for me
become a serious theory, one that is supported by evidence as
powerfully as the theory of global warming. I am concerned that the
rate of deterioration is compounding (Thank you, Sugarzareh, for
supplying examples culled from your field observations of teen
thugwads. Other readers are invited to submit theirs as well). Here
are just a few recent examples I've encountered:
Word Coinage at a recent meeting I was at:
Jane Doe: Devisory
John Doe: Insultive
[Sorry for the pseudonyms, I suspect they may be paranoid ego surfers,
and I don't need any grief over something so petty.
From a list I'm on: "I also ask for comments and except them." [Me
too, but up until now I thought I was the only one who would admit it.
Most people brag about accepting comments]
Headline in a recent Tacoma News Tribune: "Police Kill Man With
Knife" [Are the cops economizing on brutality?]
Cherif Bassiouni, on last Thursday's Democracy Now: Because they were
useful to the US after the invasion, they [Afghan warlords] "were
rewarded with impunity for their past crimes."
A huge number of examples of human idiocy from a recent press conference:
Bush: "I take him for his word"
Bush: "Natural gas can only be transported when you liquefy it. When
you put it into solid form."
Bush: "I can only speak to myself"
Reporter: "Is this what's nominating Democrats to oppose your
judicial candidates?"
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