Holy shit

Yesterday I was not a happy camper. And although the reason for my foul mood wasn’t primarily that (surprise surprise) I was once again going through a commute from hell, it sure didn’t help either. By the time I was on my fourth train that morning and still hadn’t reached my destination to start the working day, I was pretty depressed. Now the train in question was packed with people trying to do the same as I was, but there was also a fairly large number of American students on it, all girls. And of course they did the classic American girl thing: they talked. Quite loudly, I might add.

But rather than the sheer volume of their quacking, it was their language that angered me. It really was my very own United States of Whatever on that train (click here if you don’t know what I’m talking about). In essence, this boils down to endless conversations consisting of nothing but ‘Yeah, whatever…’, ‘And then she was all like…’, ‘But I ain’t sayin’ nuthin’, knowwhamean?’ and similar capital offenses against the Queen’s Tongue. And of course that had me going for the rest of the day…

Indeed, it suddenly dawned on me that throughout any given day I’m at least several times annoyed by bad language. I already mentioned people using the noun ‘paranoia’ for the adjective ‘paranoid’ the day before yesterday. Now some of you might say, ‘Well, is it really that bad that the language is evolving into using ‘paranoia’ both as a noun and an adjective? A philologist like you should realise that language changes constantly and that there’s not really any objective reason to label something good or bad if it’s used by a community of speakers’. Well touché, I guess someone woke up with a linguistic mind this morning! But you see, I’m not really trying to decide what’s right and what’s wrong here. What I’m saying is that when we use poor language (in the literal sense of a language being less rich than before the change), we might end up using poor thinking.

For instance, most English speakers don’t know the difference between disinterested and uninterested. Now uninterested means you are not interested in something, as in ‘She gave him an uninterested look’, while disinterested means you take no interest in something, as in ‘To be a good referee you have to be disinterested’. Most people would use both to express the same, and many have already forgotten disinterested or consider it a posh alternative. But think about it: when we confuse both words or ultimately end up with only one, doesn’t that also mean that we’re losing a way to distinguish between two very different things? And doesn’t it fit wonderfully well with modern society that we are forgetting the notion of being disinterested (and objective) and favouring the notion of being uninterested (and - often - selfish)?

Anyway, to illustrate how bad language can ultimately turn into very bad thinking, or perhaps vice versa (I’m not too sure in this case), consider this picture of a sign posted in the bathroom of my working place. It’s been annoying me for months on end now, mainly because I cannot for the life of me decide what it actually means. I suppose the person who drafted it wasn’t too careful with the way he expressed himself and there you have the logical consequence: utter nonsense.


(for those who don’t speak Dutch: ‘Please put the toilet brush back clean and dry in its holder. Thank you kindly in advance!’)

But Holy Mackerel, what does that mean ‘put the toilet brush back clean and dry’? Clean and dry? You do know I’m using this brush to clean off my shit from inside a wet toilet, don’t you? That’s what it’s for! How on earth am I going to keep it from getting dirty and wet? Or, alternatively, do you expect me to get it clean and dry after I have used it? But what do you want me to do? I can’t very well rinse it out in the sink and then use the blow dryer to dry it, can I?

For God’s sake, people. Let’s try to express ourselves articulately, shall we?

Thank you in advance.