in a word

 

What's bothering me this morning? 

Evolution. Again. Or still. Evolution, as in a question during my growing up years, "Do you believe in evolution, or the Bible?" Well any good Southern Bible Belt Christian knew the answer to that one, not just the right answer, the true answer. Same in my Cove School days as, "Are you for civil rights or states rights"? I dunno, what are they? "Civil rights means Blacks would go to school with us." 

I'm not as stupid as I used to be. On either subject, either question. I never did Blackface myself, but I remember Al Jolson, and I do remember the "Minstrels" that we loved having in our class at Cove School. And Amos and Andy, and Jack Benny and Rochester. Yes, hilarious, obliviously putting down an entire category of human beings. How could we have been so? Belonging to a college fraternity that glorified a shameful era of American history. Going in the Navy when Stewards serving in officers' quarters aboard ship were of other races, Black or Filipino. I come from a different age, lived into the end of that era, as part of it. Civilization, culture are inbred, it doesn't occur to us what we really are. Not only racial issues, other religions, in America other nations of origin - - Italians, Irish, Mexican. 

Years ago I overheard my mother in law exclaim that if things continued as they were going, pretty soon there'd be no more White people, everybody would be Tan. My thought at the time was that that would be better. I dunno though. IDK anything. 

When I was eighteen and nineteen my light began to dawn. Maybe you've been there? Oh, I'm not enlightened now, just standing in a different light from where I grew up, with different darkness and darknesses that I don't realize. Different certainties, different hatreds.

What brought all this down? Evolution. Because of popular usage, already in my Time the word "hopefully" has devolved into new meaning. It's subtle, a shading, but diminished. Now I find out that even Merriam Webster is keeping an eye on the popular new spelling of "whoa", the word is being spelled "woah" and the incorrect spelling has become so common that it's about to be regularized into acceptable spelling. But then, that's the way with words, that's how language expands. I have a new word of my own, that relates to my scathing, damning contempt for certainty, especially religious certainty. My word is "certitudinous", which means filled with certitude. In Time, I'll teach my computer to stop drawing a red line under my word every time I use it.

But this is legitimate evolution, you know, the evolution of language, word by word, one word at a time. There's a book, P. Williams, "A Dictionary of Lost Words", which I've not read yet. Another, a charming children's novel, "Frindle", about a word struggle between a boy and his teacher.

If you want to learn about words coming into usage, subscribe to a.word.a.day by Anu Garg. 

Anyway, that's what's bothering me. Evolution doesn't' bother me, in fact, I'm all for it. What bothers me is that the dummies who don't know the proper use of "hopefully" and who can't even spell "whoa" have the last word.