Saturday Nov 29, 2003

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i just remembered something that made me really angry at the world. and now i'm sort of angry again, just thinking about it.

one day, rik and i were at the book store, borders or something, looking at the magazines. i picked up my favorite fag hag rag, bust magazine, because apparently post-riot grrl feminism means wishing you were a homosexual male.
anyway, i looked at the table of contents to see if there were any articles about cher or john waters or something fun like that. i immediately turned to an article about girl werewolves.
i couldn't even finish the first page. why? because the writer used the word (and i use the term "word" very loosely) "peeps". not like marshmallow chickens, like "people".
how is this okay to use in a publication?? is it some asshole trying to be hip? does ANYONE respect the english language anymore? is it just america? if i move somewhere else, will i stop tearing out my hair every time i read something?
it's not as though i expect a lot from 'bust'. they're just a bunch of third-wave feminists, which from what i can tell means absolutely nothing. if a third-wave feminist is reading this right now, please be offended. you are an idiot.

are there any respectable languages left? maybe i'll learn one of those. i think i lost most of my faith in english when i saw that "shopaholic" was added to the merriam-webster dictionary.
VIEW 7 of 7 COMMENTS
tarbaby:
if i could reach through the computer and kill someone, i'd start with whoever created urban dictionary.
adjunct:
I think you find that there are different versions of weird, annoying slang in different parts of the English-speaking world. As more of the planet becomes a part of the English-speaking world, you get more weird, fucked-up new words that may or may not have respectable origins. When I was in school (linguistics), we spent a lot of time tracking down the origins of unusual words & phrases from different parts of the world. There's a whole genre of Singapore English, and somewhat strange/obscure slang in northern England that's never made it out of there (except in Verve songs). It's endless.

The one thing that is the same no matter what English you speak is that language always changes. Many of the words we're using now started out as unrespectable slang words in the past and were eventually adopted into normal use. I think electronic communication has sped up this process, but it's still the same one that's always been in effect.

M-W is kind of the Costco of dictionaries, though- they'll let anything in. Don't take it seriously until it gets to the OED. And don't take Bust seriously- they do end every issue with 'One-Handed Read.'

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