“The Fine Print”, by Michael Schrader

FUN WITH SEMANTICS

(Written 18 February 1998. Published in the Neighborhood Journal. Posted 19 June 2009.)

I was going to write this week about my incredible string of bad luck of late and my wonderful Valentine's Day. You know the kind. The kind where you call your wife from a total stranger's cellular phone and tell hear those words that she wants to hear--"Honey, we don't have to worry about the front end alignment problems on your van any more. Why? Well, it no longer has a front end!"

Then I thought to myself, "Nah. Been there. Done that. My readers expect me to talk about real issues." So although I had the other column done, I decided to delete it. Or, for those computer old timers, kill it. For computer newbies, i.e. those who have no idea how to run programs in DOS, one of the original commands for deleting computer files was the KILL command. However, for the sake of political correct, KILL was thought to send the wrong message, so it was later dropped for the more sensitive PURGE. Purge, in time, was also deemed to be too harsh, and was replaced with delete.

Of course, this computer correctness seems to make sense. I just can't visualize some hit man somewhere saying he is going to delete someone. No, kill would probably be the most common verb. Especially among the rank-and-file blue-collar hit men. "Bubba, take the truck over to McDonalds and get me a cup of coffee while I go kill this guy."

I must admit, however, I can visualize aristocratic hit men using purge, as it sounds much more suave and sophisticated. "Grimes, pull the limo over and make us some tea while I purge this fine gentleman."

Delete? Well, let's just say while I can't see it's use with this generation of mercenaries, hit men, and thugs, it has real potential for the next generation. Just visualize: a hit man with spiked hair, a million tattoos, and every single part of his body pierced that can be pierced. A hit man of the next generation that grew up playing all of the technoviolence that is so prevalent among the youth of today: you know, the games where every other word is one that Momma would wash my mouth out with soap for saying, with more blood and guts than even the most violent show on television (and yes, the evening news does count!). A hit man who is quick with the gun but who has a very limited, and almost unrecognizable, vocabulary. ("Let's delete the sombi.")

Is it just me, or does it seem to be that our youth are speaking a different language than us? And I'm not talking figuratively, either. I'm talking literally. It seems to me that more and more the language of youth is the language of grunts. You ask a question, and the answer you get is a grunt. And the pitch of the grunts conveys their meaning.

If you don't believe me, just listen to any Top 40 station. I hereby issue the Schrader Challenge: without looking at the lyrics, tell me what they are. You can't. They are indecipherable. I've read the lyric sheets for some, and, let me say for the record, I don't believe them. Not one word. It seems phonetically impossible to make words sound that completely different.

Frank Sinatra may be old, but at least I can understand what he is singing. He knows how to enunciate.

Thirty years ago, the Beatles recorded a completely nonsensical tune. You know the one. "I Am The Walrus." With lyrics like "sitting on a Corn Flake." I am sure many of today's songs are just as nonsensical. The difference is, we knew that Lennon's tune was silly. We could understand the lyrics. And we could appreciate Lennon's sense of humor. He was, after all, showing that he did not take his own work too seriously. (That song, by the way, proves a contention that I've always had--that it's the tune, not the lyrics, that generates record sales.)

Oh dear. It looks like I've kind of digressed. It looks like I am going to have to skip my treatise on the value of manufactured housing. Please, please, don't weep.

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