...and another thing!

For the most part, since the vast majority of us don’t really like to think too much, we tend to use a shockingly small vocabulary of words. It’s from this small ‘vocab-in-use’ that we draw for our daily communications, and so its probably not all that surprising that when we have occasion to express something that approximates surprise or amazement… we’re all pretty much stumped.

But there is one phrase that has come into such common usage that I am absolutely SICK of hearing it. It gets used with no thought….at all! Typically, you’ll hear it when some hapless punter is being told that they are staying on in one of these incessant reality TV shows. There’ll be all the hype about the fact that this ‘nail biting’ episode of ‘Master-Stiff’ or ‘Big Bugger’ with the typical American voice over from some fella that sounds like he’s just smoked 5 packs of Woodbines before stepping up to the microphone… and then a tottering woman (or man) with teeth you could use as a straight edge will reveal the result of some decision that the celebrity judges have lost sleep over. The punter will then – almost universally say: ‘OH MY GARD! Often they’ll say it, wait for the approval of all the other hyper cool people on the show before repeating it again….. and again….. and again!

Note that it’s not ‘OH MY GIDDY AUNT’…! OBVIOUSLY it’s not THAT! That would be un-cool wouldn’t it! Nor is it ‘Oh my abstracted concept of a benevolent higher being’ or even ‘shag me sideways with a ragtime players trombone’… which would have at least some small thing going for them! I mean the whole purpose of the expression is to communicate surprise… joy even! Usually, these hap-'free' contestants have had considerable time to conceive and mentally rehearse what they might say… and given that it will be seen by millions of other ‘Oh my god’ …ers, I’d have thought that they might consider something that flys a bit further…

But not only do we not consider words and phrases that are not in common parlance, but we actually try to stop others from using them too. I had a conversation with someone recently (ah my poor long suffering wife!) in which I recalled an incident during my MBA when during an online discussion I used a term ‘meta’ as in ‘meta-cognition’ (or something) to illustrate a point I was trying to make. I was squarely rounded on by another student for using language that was inaccessible, although I think he used the term ‘highbrow’ or something. What was worse was that the tutor who was the moderator of that particular online discussion agreed with the bloke.

So what does this mean?

Well I think that it is symptomatic of a reluctance to step outside of the normative behaviour that we use to define ourselves to the society around us. It is this same behaviour that I’m trying to work around (for my part) in the development of the Logan Creative Network….but lets not go there eh…or Bugger that for a fridge full of beer!