Quote of the Day

"All our words from loose using have lost their edge."

-Earnest Hemingway


These wise words of the wise writer, Ernest Hemingway, ring true even  in the 21st century, a century of truncated words used for "text speak". People butcher words down to only three letters which stand for an emotion, action or a whole word.  Through this botching of the English language, the meanings of such words will be lost in history. What Hemmingway is saying is that people tend to overuse words so their real meanings are lost. For example, I have noticed that the word "epic" is frequently used by the people of my generation as a substitute for the word "awesome". However, the original meaning of "epic" has nothing to do with "awesome". The very definition of epic is a narrative that celebrates the accomplishments of a hero, such as Homer's The Odyssey. It does not in any way mean awesome. How the people of my generation came to this conclusion, I have no idea. The Urban Dictionary defines "epic" as it applies to my generation:
Definition 1:

"the most overused word ever, next to fail. for even more asshole points, use them together to form "epic fail."

everything is epic now. epic car. epic haircut. epic movie. epic album. epic shut the fuck up.

saying "epic win" doesn't make you sound any better, either. and for fucks sake, don't ever say it in person.

DUDE UR POSTCOUNT IZ EPIC FAIL FAGOT

LOL EPIC WIN U RUEL

LISTEN TO THIS SONG IT'S SO EPIC" (http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=epic) 

Definition 2 (This is the most humorous explanation):

"A word, whose meaningful definition(s)and correct applications are now obscured and have been raped to death mostly by the 25 and under crowd. It has been overused as "the" catch phrase used to describe a situation, person, event, movie, taking a shit,etc. The abuse and birth as a catchphrase has its origins among avid gamers and pretentious English majors.

There are too many "epic" examples to count, just go walk onto a college campus and listen closely." (http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=epic)

I am embarrassed to say that I live in this generation of language botching. I believe they call us "millenials".When I hear the word "millenial" I think of irresponsible young people with their faces fused to their cellular phones, their fingers automatically typing away as though it were programmed into their very being. I think of people my age who no longer spell out words or write out entire sentences when they text. I suppose they think it takes too long. No one likes to write anymore. Writing will become a lost art. This makes me sad. So long, English language.

Maybe I took this interpretation of Hemmingway's quote too far, but I think it applies to our society because people don't take the time to properly learn the correct meaning of words anymore. Perhaps this is due to the rapidly advancing of technology that distracts the youth of today from learning meaningful things. I am not trying to say that technology is not meaningful. It is actually quite useful when used correctly. Computers and even smart phones can be used to look up words and to publish writing. I have a dictionary app for my phone that I use when I want to quickly look up definitions of words. The problem is that many young people have not developed the ability to use their technology in a way that proves fruitful to their education.  I find it immensely gratifying to use my phone as a device for not only making calls and texting, but as a dictionary, thesaurus and even a spell-checker. In fact, I even downloaded a Kindle app for my phone so I can access all of my Kindle books on it when I do not have my Kindle with me.
 So, the point I am trying to make is that there is absolutely no logical excuse for anyone in this day and age to misuse words because of ignorance. Knowledge is so readily available to us more than it ever has been.