{"id":4116,"date":"2017-11-13T07:50:51","date_gmt":"2017-11-13T06:50:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/?p=4116"},"modified":"2020-03-23T08:38:27","modified_gmt":"2020-03-23T07:38:27","slug":"i-literally-cant-even","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/?p=4116","title":{"rendered":"I literally Can’t Even"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>A friend of mine related a story in which one of his characters was engaged in the activity of reaching out. It was something like \u201cJohn reached out the other night.\u201d<\/p>\n

I said, \u201cOh no, what was the problem?\u201d<\/p>\n

My friend looked a bit confused and said, \u201cThere was no problem, he just wanted to talk.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sometimes I am faced with evidence that I am old and this is often at the hands of language. \u201cReaching out\u201d is just one little part of an alarming trend I\u2019ve noticed wherein I don\u2019t understand what people say or what they mean by the words they use to convey ideas. I think I used to understand. When I do understand, I am annoyed by what I understand. It’s understandably vexing.<\/p>\n

For example, some time ago in the past, when I wasn\u2019t looking, the term \u201creach out\u201d replaced the words \u201ccall” or “contact.\u201d Despite the fact that I have heard it enough to gather its updated meaning, I still can\u2019t shake my initial impression of the term, which implies that someone reaching out is in dire need of a therapeutic talk. If he\u2019s reaching out, he better be Neil Diamond and he better then be touching you and then touching me, and if he\u2019s not then I am annoyed.<\/p>\n

There are more. The word \u201cliterally\u201d has fallen so far from grace that it\u2019s actually become its antonym. Words evolve, \u201cbrave\u201d used to mean \u201ccowardly,\u201d and this original definition is captured in its sister phrase \u201cbravado.\u201d So this has surely happened before, but I bet whoever was alive when \u201cbrave\u201d started meaning its opposite were pretty irked by it.<\/p>\n

One of my favorite activities is explaining the current changes in the world to my dad during our Sunday afternoon chats. I update him on social mores and trends, how technology can allow him to get a picture right in his inbox. In particular I try to help him understand neologisms and new phraseology. No, I know BFF sounds like a McDonald\u2019s sandwich, but it means best friends.<\/em> Yes, I know it\u2019s dumb. No, I don\u2019t know what\u2019s happening to language. <\/em>I tell him the acceptable and unacceptable nomenclature for various groups of people. No, no. Please don\u2019t call them that anymore…at least not in front of other people.<\/em><\/p>\n

I often enjoy poking fun at him because of how out of touch he is, but admittedly, I\u2019m often as confused as he is. The only reason I can assist him is because I work with young people who watch young people shows and movies and then they use this young people language in front of me. That or I see it on Facebook.<\/p>\n

A great deal of the time I spend on Facebook is in vast confusion, and of all the new uses of old words I must admit to being conflicted by the use of the word “this.” You have seen it, a person posts a video or article of scorching political or social commentary and their only comment is \u201cThis.\u201d On one hand I admire the ability to convey so much with such efficiency and concision. On the other hand I roll my eyes at the laziness. No need to write a witty intro or a hook, just write \u201cthis\u201d and everyone will apply their own ideas. Just give me a verb after this, like sucks<\/em> or rocks<\/em> or even a noun like idiot<\/em> or genius<\/em> would clarify things. But no, you let the reader do all the work. In ten years half of social media content will be headlined by the single demonstrative \u201cThis.\u201d<\/p>\n

If half of Facebookers use \u201cthis\u201d in the future, the other half won\u2019t even get that far. This is based on the already over used phrase \u201cI can\u2019t even.\u201d Again, a concise phrase to convey lots of feelings: lost hope, frustration, exasperation. The phrase itself is a brilliant almost metaphorical representation of it all. But “I can’t even,” like its post brother “this,” just seems to be a very easy way of not trying at all.<\/p>\n

There’s no use getting worked up about it, language changes and it usually does so to make things more convenient or easier to convey. But sometimes I can’t even. And when I can’t even, I reach out to my bff and we meet at a bar, and we drink literally a hundred beers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A friend of mine related a story in which one of his characters was engaged in the activity of reaching out. It was something like \u201cJohn reached out the other night.\u201d I said, \u201cOh no, what was the problem?\u201d My friend looked a bit confused and said, \u201cThere was no problem, he just wanted to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4117,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4116","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/damiengaleone.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/cant-even-guy.jpg?fit=400%2C400&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1EvEu-14o","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4116","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4116"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4116\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4961,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4116\/revisions\/4961"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/4117"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4116"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4116"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4116"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}