The Bastardization of Language

Originally, the word “Spam” was a contraction of the words for the ingredients in a rather low form of preserved food intended for human consumption.
The word might be a contraction for “spiced ham.” A can of Spam contains a mysterious mix of a spongy material that is purported to be meat. It could be ham.

Spam was trademarked long ago; the product can still be found in the grocery store. It still has the same horrible taste, but it costs a lot more than it once did.

Spam was a staple in some homes during and right after World War Two. Some foods were rationed because they were needed to feed the troops overseas. The GIs got Spam also, along with lots of mutton and chipped beef. But the good stuff was rationed. Ask a WWII vet, if you find a living one, what he thinks of mutton.

Spam canned 50 years ago is still edible. Well, I mean, if one can bring oneself to eat Spam at all, one can safely eat Spam no matter how old. It has a radioactive half-life of approximately ten centuries.

Here is how language evolves, how words come to be used for different purposes. Spam was a convenient and clever choice in the search for a word to describe the mysterious collection of tasteless crap that floods the internet and e-mail recipients.

It’s quite likely that a huge majority of folks who use the word “Spam” today don’t know its heritage. Or care.

This new use of the word is all right with me. When I see spam on my server, I fondly remember the earlier meaning of the word but have no problem accepting its new usage. It is fitting and proper.

This is not so with all changes that go on in language. Some I resent. Some irritate me. Most are simply annoying.

Two girls talking

Go back with me a couple of weeks to a scene in a restaurant. I don’t intentionally listen to other people’s conversations. I don’t want to know. I don’t care. I don’t have room in my brain for personal spam.

However, some things just stand out, or leap into the air to become unavoidably imbedded in the ears, and hence the memory.

Two young women sat in a booth behind me. I couldn’t help but hear. One girl was complaining about her boyfriend. He is a slob. He has a nice car but doesn’t take care of it. He should get a haircut. He forgets to call me. His mother is a bitch.

The torrent of bile became so cloying that even the woman’s lunch partner had to object. The partner asked, “Then if he’s so terrible, why are you dating him?”

(Here comes the part where de-evolution in the language bothers me.)

The first girl, the complainer, said, “Oh. It’s true I am DAY-teen (dating) ham (him). But that doesn’t mean I LIKE ham.”

We lost the “i-n-g” in there, somehow. “Ing” became “een.” She is not dating. She is DAY-teen. With this girl, and probably millions of others, we have lost “him.” It has become “ham.”

Perhaps when she was 12, this woman’s mother sat her down and instructed her, “When you are out in public, be sure to, like, speak in a stupid way, like. Say to yourself, ‘I’m, like, a Valley girl.’”

The Rolling Stones got under the skins of the early women’s libbers with the song “Stupid Girl.” But I still defend the lyric as forthright and useful. If I had turned in my restaurant seat, I could have looked at a prime example of a Stupid Girl.

The unfortunate changes in pronunciation don’t enhance understanding. Unless, in my case, it was a telling verbal affectation which allowed me to clearly understand the lack of character in the speaker.

Gag me with a spoon.

“S” vs. “Sh”

We are losing the proper pronunciation of the letter “S” in many words. As an example, I hear radio announcers say “Schwagg” when they mean “swag.”

Swag means loot or plunder. Swag is free stuff you get if you telephone the radio station. But the pronunciation is “swag” not “schwagg.”

The radio guy is still called a “DJ” even though he probably doesn’t know the initials once meant “disc jockey” and he no longer uses discs in his vocation of playing recorded music for our entertainment. Evolution in language causes loss of meaning.

If you listen, you’ll hear the sharp hiss-like “S” being replaced by “Sh”.

There are dozens of examples. Here are some: “I was planning to go schwimming after shcool. I went to the shoe schtore but they didn’t have anything in my size.”

“Schtore?” What in the world would be wrong with simply saying “store”? Listen and you’ll confirm my observations. It’s an unfortunate degradation of the language. How shtupid. Gag me with a spoon.

Another café conversation

This anecdote doesn’t have anything to do with affected pronunciation. It’s another overheard conversation, but with a cruel O’ Henry climax. (Ask me about “affect” and “effect” sometime, but be prepared for a doctoral dissertation.)

A man and woman sat in a booth behind me. Both appeared to be in their 40s, both were, um, overweight some. They were having coffee. Visiting.

Eventually, the man asked, and I couldn’t help but overhear as his head was inches from mine, he asked, “Would you like to go to a movie or a concert?”

She hemmed and hawed, and finally said, almost inaudibly, “I don’t date. I am uncomfortable with my body. Thank you for asking me, but I just don’t date.”

Here’s the incredible part. The man responded (Man? I wonder.) “Hey. It would be all right. I like fat girls.”

He really said that. The boor. The the scar will never heal.

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Word of the Week: Swag. It most likely comes from a Norwegian dialect, svagga, to sway. Webster gives first meaning as “to sway or lurch.” It can also mean to sink down or sag. In Australia, it means to travel on foot carrying a swag, or a bundle of personal belongings. Our meaning today is stolen money or property, loot, or even plunder.

Swag. Not schwag.