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The Citizen, 2016-05-26, Page 5THE CITIZEN, THURSDAY, MAY 26, 2016. PAGE 5. Other Views The English language at work If the English language made any sense, `lackadaisical' would mean a shortage of flowers. — Doug Larson Jndeed. If English made any sense there wouldn't be eight ways to pronounce `ough' (through, thought, though, cough, rough, bough, thorough — and don't forget hiccough). But English, bless 'er, seldom makes sense. Our language is like a rogue blue whale on a methamphetamine run, thrashing through the Sea of Tongues gobbling up choice morsels left and right while wreaking tailsmacking havoc on other etymologies. As the Canadian writer James Nicoll says, "English is about as pure as a cribhouse whore. We don't just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary". That's how we picked up algebra (Arabic), skeleton (Greek), grotesque (French), mosquito (Spanish), keelhaul (Dutch), viola (Italian), pajamas (Hindi), zombie (West African), ski (Scandinavian), blitzkreig A* Arthur Black (German) and potlatch (Nootka). But we don't just steal words, we invent new ones all the time. Some words that gained official status in the Oxford English Dictionary recently include: wonky, WiFi, looky-loo and low -rent. Some words the OED honchos tossed over the side to make room for the newcomers: abstergent (cleansing), caducity (perishableness) and griseous (streaked with grey). I won't miss those words (mainly because I never knew they existed) but the authorities also deep-sixed a number of worthies that I think still have plenty of tread on their tires. What's wrong with `embrangle' (to confuse or entangle)? Why are we ditching a splendid word like `niddering' (cowardly)? And isn't `fubsy' (short and stout, squat) just too good to kill? A malison (curse) upon the heads of the butchers who excised these words from our lexicon. And yes, `malison' is also on the chopping block. Ah, well. English is a feisty old broad. She has to work with what she's got. From monosyllabic teenagers who can't string a thought sequence together with out slapping on bandages and twist ties such as "awesome' and `like'... "So she wuz like, 'You see that dude? Awesome!' An' I was, like, 'Whatever....'" ....To Bureaucratese. How would a civil servant suggest that someone was lying? Here's how Sir Humphrey Appleby did it in Yes, Minister: "Sometimes one is forced to consider the possibility that affairs are being conducted in a manner which, all things being considered and making all possible allowances is, not to put to fine a point on it, perhaps not entirely straightforward." Or, as George Carlin put it: "I don't have to tell you it goes without saying there are some things better left unsaid I think that speaks for itself. The less said about it the better." New definition needed for millennial Usually, I'm quite proud of my knowledge of the English language. It came from having proficient teachers, a thirst for literature of all kinds and plenty of embarrassing moments when I had a definition or a pronunciation wrong. As I'll be more than happy to tell most people, when I'm wrong I learn from my mistakes. Take, for example, the movie Armageddon. Despite being a church -going youngster, when the film first came out, I read about it (I was into anything space at that point in my life) but never heard anyone say it. From a linguistics or phonetic standpoint, I reasoned out that it must have a soft `G' due to the `E' afterwords. The looks I got when I pronounced that particular word more like a dinosaur name than the end of the world made me always remember not only how to say it but how to spell it as well. I had a similarly embarrassing moment when I mispronounced the word Impala, though that was more a slip of the brain than any kind of lack of knowledge of its correct pronunciation. Suffice to say, those embarrassing moments stick with me. They don't keep me up at night, but any time I'm skimming Revelations or looking at Chevy cars, I remember them and remind myself to be sure of a pronunciation before I say it with certainty. Definitions can also be tricky, as can homonyms. Just ask my post -secondary roommates about the time I mixed up emaciated and emancipated and tried to convince them that I was simply being a wordsmith and trying to say the emaciated individuals in question had been emancipated from the weight that held them back. However, one word that people tell me I'm using wrong but I'm guaranteeing I'm not is the relatively new term millennial. Many people define millennial as anyone born between the years 1982 and 1995, however I disagree. Here's the problem: according to many definitions, people my age are considered to be a part of that group. Being born in 1985, I was raised in a home that had a computer, yes, but we didn't have access to the internet until I was in my teens. As a matter of fact, I lived for a full decade before I was playing around with computers Denny Scott itighd, Denny's Den that didn't require constant switching of gigantic (actually) floppy discs to do pretty much anything on them. While the dictionary definition is a person who reached adulthood around the year 2000, the term also conjures images of an entire generation who share some less -than -desirable traits. They are pampered because their parents blamed everyone but them for their failures. They are sheltered because their parents made sure they never had to face their shortcomings and they are defined by some as the most spoiled generation in the history of the world. I don't think that can apply to people born in the mid-1980s. I grew up outside, and the only form of protection my parents every offered from the real world (and this is praise, not condemnation) was giving me bandaids when I had learned what not to do (and don't worry Mom, the lessons stuck. No blood? No bandaid.) I visited friends, I played hockey on rinks, I biked around until I found a peer to play outside with and, despite a love affair with Nintendo's earliest system, I didn't find technology running my life until I had learned to live without it. In short — I have very little in common with my brother and sister who happened to be born at the end of the Millennial bracket in 1995. Now, I'm not saying my brother and sister were sheltered or anything like that, but they are part of a generation that seems to have been told, "You can do anything you want with your life," but were never reminded they had to work for it. That's my own working definition of millennial; people who realize the world is there for the taking but don't realize that "the taking" actually requires a significant amount of work, planning and forethought. The term millennial needs to be redefined because the only age group I have ever dealt with who, as a rule and not an exception, act this way are at least five years younger than me. (And the reverse of that is true as well; there are exceptions to the rule. We all know hardworking young people who realize the value of their efforts, unfortunately there are less and less of them all the time.) In the end, I think technological advancement and accessibility is what changed things. I can go to a cabin or a cottage, turn my cell phone off and leave it in the car and enjoy the peace and quiet or a long game of cards. Suggesting the same thing to people half or a full decade younger than me seems to draw the question of why? Why not have technology on hand at all times? Why not shut off our brains and watch videos on YouTube? To those questions, I say why not unplug for awhile? Why not sit around the table and play Mexican Rummy or a game of Uno? Why not go down to the beach and watch the waves crash and play fetch with a dog? Why not disconnect from the global world for awhile to remember that there is so much beauty right outside your door that goes ignored in favour of cat videos on the internet? So, to summarize here, I am not a millennial. If the word cannot be redefined as I'm suggesting, then I'll have to go to my fallback position; I'm a senior trapped in the body of a 30 -something and therefore not labelled as one of these darn millennia's who, coincidentally, need to stay off my lawn. Okay, actually, the people who need to stay off my lawn are the people who tear it up with their golf carts who are decidedly not millennia's, however the point stands. That brush doesn't fit me or most of the people I know so it's time to redefine the term. Final Thought "Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could. Some blunders and absurdities have crept in; forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day. You shall begin it serenely and with too high a spirit to be encumbered with your old nonsense." — Ralph Waldo Emerson Shawn 0051 Loughlin Shawn's Sense Face to face ear after year, as I interview people who travel from far and wide to work at the Blyth Festival, whether it be on the stage or behind the scenes, I always hear people talk about the feel of the community in Huron County. After sitting in on many discussions, many of them at the Huron County level as decisions regarding a new centralized office loom, that discuss the changing face of "the workplace" I find it refreshing to hear how important the identity and the fabric of a community is to those involved with the Blyth Festival. That's not to say that the community is only important to those at the Blyth Festival — of course our communities here in Blyth and Brussels and beyond are important to the vast majority of us, otherwise we wouldn't be here. But, going back to all this talk about the power of the internet and video -chat programs and how you don't need to be in the office to "be in the office" any longer, it's great to see how important it is to the folks coming to Blyth for this season's Festival to put the soles of their shoes on the ground, breathe some Huron County air and meet some of its people before speaking to me for a story. Especially in this season, where the play Our Beautiful Sons: Remembering Matthew Dinning tells the story of the Dinning family — people cherished in this area — I've been told repeatedly that actors want to be in Blyth and meet the Dinning family before they speak about the roles they'll play in this year's season of the Blyth Festival. Face-to-face contact, actual in-person conversations and getting a feel for a person and a community is still important to these people. Reading a few news stories or Googling a picture or even having a phone conversation just isn't the same as sitting down across a kitchen table from someone and hearing their story and year after year I feel the actors and writers and directors who come to the Blyth Festival understand that. As a friend to the Dinning family, it makes me happy to hear that there's a priority being given to meeting the people who lived the life before the actors will be asked to tell the story on stage. There's no denying that it's one of the most important stories Huron County has had over the last 10 years and one that has shaped many different things over that decade. So the weight of that situation is being felt not just by community members, but our temporary community members who make Blyth their home for a few months every year when they tell our stories on the Memorial Hall stage. Doing what I do for a living, there are a number of realities you have to deal with. You don't always have the time to sit across a kitchen table from the person you want to interview and spend a few hours getting to know them. Many times you have to be quick for one reason or another and you just don't have the time. It's the same reason Denny or I can't stay at events from start to finish, often there's another event going on that's just as important and we have to split our time between events throughout the community. However, as residents of Huron County, we should be happy that the actors who tell the stories of rural Ontario, and of Canada, on the Blyth stage care about getting to know our communities and our people, because there's no Google search in the world that can take the place of spending time with someone in a kitchen, a living room or a backyard deck, beer in hand or otherwise. And that's something the internet will never replace.