I am just one of many that take great joy in being able to have a respectable command of the English language (I know, how arrogant). Decades and centuries have passed with evocative poetry, eloquent writers and articulate speakers, all with the aim of being able to describe a situation so completely true that the reader is immediately able to make an instant connection without the faintest flicker of ennui; a student immersed and convinced that each following word unlocks the mystery of the sentence and eventually, the entire magnum opus. So, if that’s what you were looking for, you’ll be a bit disappointed. I don’t do all that ‘meaning of life’ stuff, I'll leave that to some cheesy poet who just wants to sound profound. Rather, this piece intends to pick apart the things that stealthily frequent our lives. And no, it’s not the toilet paper that inexplicably finds its way onto the spool hanging in my bathroom. Someone from my family does it. I solved that a few weeks ago. Ha! And they say Columbo was a good detective. Twat.
I’m going to keep this post short (not entirely true). I have a healthy obsession with trying to incorporate new words into my lexicon, without those words sounding particularly alien when they exit my mouth in an orderly fashion. See, I think that as a nation, we have a strong tendency to stick with the familiar, which I suppose is only natural considering our habitual instincts. In a country nestling comfortably in a schedule of work, 9 to 5’s, food diaries, gym routines, sock drawers, correct alignment of coasters on the dining table, carrying your phone in a particular pocket, sleepy time, meeting friends, Sky planners and the regular intake of breath mints, it’s no wonder our lives are plagued by repetition. Inevitably, ‘routine’ is bound to spread its languid wings to also encompass our diction and ‘keep it simple’. Consequently, it results in staccato pronunciation of seemingly difficult words that could have comfortably exited our mouths had our tongues been able to form some sort of muscle memory in the early stages of our lives.
I’ll structure a scenario with words for you. Imagine the following sentence being uttered from a toothless urchin on a street corner: ‘Oh, I don’t know how to describe it. It’s... it’s...’ . And the sentence ends on this predictable cliffhanger (how prejudiced; maybe this toothless urchin is actually some sort of linguistic professor... but in this case he's really not. He's a stupid toothless urchin. Deal with it). Can you guess what this person was trying to explain? Yep, it was someone trying to illustrate what heroin is. My conclusion is that these substances aren’t as popular because druggies find them difficult to describe. Their PR is all over the place; they don’t know whether they’re coming or going (probably because that person is on heroin). For example, I love a Starbucks every now and then but that’s largely down to the foamy green and white advertising. And they tell me that the beans help some people in another country so by buying this stuff, I’m actually helping someone by sending my brain into a caffeine-induced frenzy, and who doesn’t want that? So if the rotting, walking, illegal-substance-selling junkies put on a suit, brushed their teeth and either spoke beautifully or sang ‘Golden Brown’ when selling, I might just say ‘Oh, tell me more; the grubby spoon and needle looks interesting. Do they come in other quantities? Or is it just a teaspoon? No thank you, I might come back later ‘cos I wanna see if anyone has a tablespoon or something, ‘cos usually if you buy in larger quantities then stores sell products cheaper due to the whole bulk-buying system which has probably revolutionised shopping as a whole. You know, like a Costco for smack’. Not that I'm condoning this sort of alleyway business, it's just mere observation.
However, I think this rant will remain pointless as I don’t believe that a complete command of English will ever seem cool. Unless I tell you that it is incredibly sexy. ‘Cos erm... it is.
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