Fresh Air - Language Commentary

[Russ McClay]

This was just sent to me by a friend who lives in
San Jose, CA. I thought it might be of interest to some here:


By Geoff Nunberg

Language Commentary, "Fresh Air,"
December 20, 1999

Before we start on the carousin'
On the eve of year two thousan',
Let's clean out our linguistic closets
Of their detritus and deposits,
The babble, balderdash, and bugs
That rankle underneath the rugs
With solecisms, slang, and slag,
And sweep it all into a bag.
Then, as the afternoon gets late,
Let's gather on the Golden Gate,
And with one stroke, bold and defiant,
Make English Y2K compliant.

Let's clear out our congested cargo
Of business cant and corporate argot.
We'll ditch proactive for a starter,
And "We don't work harder, just work smarter"
(A line that's ill-advised, my hunch is,
Returning from two-hour lunches).

Lose sight of visions, goals and missions,
And pitch out value propositions.
Synergistic or synergetic? --
Either one gives me a headache,
And the concept of convergence
Is in need of some submergence.
Consign restructure to the void,
And downsize should be redeployed.
At least, the next time we get canned,
We'll know exactly where we stand.

Let's lose "win-win," that favorite phrase
Of all the Harvard MBA's,
And cast on the outgoing tide
The box they like to think outside,
In hopes that in the coming age,
We'll all be on a different page.

It wasn't very long ago
The Internet was comme il faut,
And only the most avant-garde
Had @-signs on their business card.
But now that even aunt Estelle
Has got herself a url,
And Vinnie at the barber shop
Made millions on his first-day pop,
We've reached the point where talking geekish
Is starting to sound so last weekish.
Emoticon and digerati
Aren't worth a wooden zloty.
To portal we can give the gate,
Mindshare will do for tuna bait,
And since you asked, IMHO,
Those email acronyms should go.

And ere the sun sets, let us jettison
Newbie, netiquette, and netizen,
Nor should we miss this opportunity
To deep-six "virtual community,"
e-this, i-that, and without qualm,
Let's unplug everything.com.

On literary critics' patois
I think we must declare a fatwah;
It's hard to part with hegemonic,
But in the end you'll find it tonic.
Think how much groovier texts are rendered
When they're just sexed instead of gendered,
And curling up at bedtime, who wants
To be holding something nuanced?

Of that chic expression "pomo,"
I'd just as soon that we heard no mo',
Nor any others of the host
Of vocables prefixed with post-.
We seem to be, for all our fears,
Still modern after all these years.

I'm sure that ages hence will honor us
If we stop cooking up new genres,
Let's spare the coming centuries
Prequels and rockumentaries,
And pause not even for a comma
Before discarding "docudrama."
And ere the clock chimes, let us vow
That critics twenty years from now
Will earn themselves an instant wedgie
Whenever they use "taut" or "edgy."

Before we can put on our nightcaps,
We've other words to feed the whitecaps:
Let's leave off calling rumors "buzz,"
And blow off anyone who does.
"Wake up call" has gotten thin --
Next year we'll all be sleeping in.
And anything you feel like sharing
Kindly offer to the herring.

And as we're chucking out the dross,
Make sure we don't neglect to toss
Those interjections, coy and clever --
Like "Let's not go there," and "whatever!"
(And while we're at it, do I gotta
Even mention "yadda yadda"?)
Arrivederci to "ExCUSE me";
You simply no longer amuse me.
Farewell to "Duh!," and, apropos,
Let's say buh-bye now to "hellO?"

Now as we watch the century go out,
There's only one more thing to throw out:
Let's cast onto the coastal shelf
The word millennium itself
(I'm glad to bid that one adieu --
The fact is that I never knew
If it should have one n or two.)

And as night falls on the Presidio,
Let's all go home and watch a video,
To pass the century's final hour
(That is, assuming we've got power).