OMG! Girrrrrrrl, I’m just LMAO at the way her boobage is showing. Somebody give her a one-way ticket to knockerville.

This is how my mom talks.

Just kidding.

But seriously, this is how many Americans speak (and by many Americans, I mean me).  Are we really this lazy of a people that we have to make up words that are clearly not in the dictionary? Or create abbreviations because actually saying the words might take up to much oxygen?

Driving around town the other day, I noticed a plethora of strip malls. Now these shopping centers are pretty nice, utilizing the adobe roof tops and faux stucco walls saying, “Hey, we’re not really in the Mexican desert, but let’s just pretend while you drink your pumpkin spice latte while on Twitter.”  These convenient store locations are a quick in and out for what we need in life. It doesn’t take a lot of work to find, and or, purchase milk.

It makes one wonder, is our language reflected by our surroundings?

Remember the days when people referred to one another as “my lady” and “my lord?” Remember using thy, and thine, and ‘tis? When describing the sniffles, it was a , “blackness in the recess of my lovers darkest cavity.”  Remember? No, of course not. No one reading this was alive then. But that is how folks talked in those days, all the while wearing eighty-five petticoats and corsets, and looking through drapes made of heavy brocade.

The vernacular of Elizabethan times, of the turn of the century, of really, any other time before the 1960s, was      laced with, well, lace. They utilized flowering language to describe a sunset, a birth, or how the soup was cold at dinner. There were so many hidden doors in the old homes, just like there were so many hidden meanings in one’s speech. A person had to sit, digest the nuances, and then figure out if they were just insulted or complemented. It’s kind of like living in the south (just kidding).

Today we speak like strip mall edifices.  We are chock full of speedy, greasy speech, losing something important with its rapidity. As a society (and by society, I mean I totally do this. All.The.Time.) we are plagued with misspellings, abbreviations, and run on sentences – all of our own doing.

I am the first to say, I blow chunks when it comes to proper grammar.  To be honest, I enjoy sloppy word usage. Which makes sense because my clothes are wrinkled right now as I write this.

To drive home my point of the language = décor, let us open our eyes full of contacts and hearing clogged with ear-buds, and take a looksy around:

Abbreviations = Fast Food Joint – I know, I know, the majority of our abbreviations are utilized in texting, however, they too are used in speech. Look at the OMGs (Oh my God), Cra-Cra (crazy), and HAM (Hot A$$ Mess) to name a few.  We are telling each other that we don’t have the time to say all the words out loud (no time to cook), instead we are just going to say a few letters while cruising past you in the hallway (the drive thru). Most likely this will confuse one person while they try to decipher what was said (mystery meat?), and leave another a bit unsettled (indigestion).

Creating Words That Do Not Actually Exist = Tanning Salon & Cosmetic Surgery Clinic – I do this all the time. It’s kind of funny if you really think about it. Take the word irregardless, I’m pretty sure people started pushing super hard in every day speech to get it into the dictionary (for reals, check it out).  Saying words that are not actually words is like covering pale skin; we all know you are pasty white under there, nonetheless, we will enjoy your orange glow. Or like new boobs – not real, but fun for somebody.

Misspellings = Half-Lit Neon Gas Sign – There are probably twenty-eight misspelled words in this article. Yet I am still writing, and thankfully, you kind people are still reading. You know when you pull into a SHELL station and only a few letters are lit up, creating a HELL gas station. That’s a misspelled word – we all know what you mean, and we are still going to fill ‘er up, but do you really want to pull into that station again?

Speaking Quickly With Massive Hand Gestures = 7-11 Convenience Store – We have got to get it all in, and fast! I too enjoy driving home my point with some type of Richard Simmons hand calisthenics.  Think of rapid speech as a massive Big Gulp soda; you suck it down so fast you forget to breathe, realizing too late that you are wired, have a brain freeze, and have to pee. Too much talking can leave both parties a bit light-headed.

A study was conducted about the way we speak, text, and disregard the rules of writing. It was found (and I am paraphrasing here) that the written word will become extinct in one hundred years (or less). So what is the answer? Start speaking to your children in Shakespearean dialect? Maybe. Write, “I will not use abbreviations,” five hundred times on the blackboard? Doubtful.

Here’s something simple I like to do: read a book. Then keep that book made of paper and put it on the shelf to keep. Books use complete sentences and words, no half-words. It is something fun and relaxing and you might learn something new.

Then, when you are finished with your book, FB your BFF that you LOL’d at the hootchie protagonist named Prudence (gag – she was so not prudent!).