DICTION COP POLICE BLOTTER NEWS

by James Lincoln Warren

Lake Superior State University is a modest institution of higher learning located in scenic Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan, directly across St. Mary’s River (i.e., the channel connecting Lake Superior and Lake Huron) from scenic Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario. They inform me that—

“Lake Superior State University is home to 3371 undergraduate students, 52% of whom are male and 48% female. 18% of the student body are residents of Ontario, Canada and 17% are from outside of Michigan and Ontario. 7% of the student body are minorities. 100% of the student body are Lakers.”

The Gentle Reader may be forgiven for never having heard of LSSU. I hadn’t before last week. As far as I know, it celebrates no particular academic distinction, rejoices in no alumni of world renown, and does not proudly host a global research center leading the world in discoveries of any heft. It offers only one graduate program, a Master of Arts in Curriculum and Instruction—for teachers, although teacher certification is not a prerequisite for enrollment. It began its unstoried existence as the Sault Branch of the Michigan College of Mining and Technology. (Engineering still seems to be a big part of its curriculum.) The predictably-named Lakers compete in the following sports: cross country, men’s golf, women’s tennis, women’s volleyball, ice hockey, men’s basketball, track & field, women’s basketball, men’s tennis, softball, and women’s golf. In other words, nothing that requires a colossal stadium and an unwholesomely wealthy alumni association.

It is the very model of a small town provincial college.

But let us not in our jaded cosmopolitan sophistication (except, of course, for Dick, who lives in Indiana) allow ourselves to be blinded from what LSSU has become: a Veritable Bastion of Civilization, a Shining Beacon of Hope to the Literate, a Profound Influence for Good in a Corrupt World.

I refer to LSSU’s monumental contribution to arts and letters, the Banned Word List for 2009. It turns out they’ve been at it for 37, count ’em, thirty-seven years. And I say, God bless ’em for it!

I’m sorry. I can’t help it. I get choked up.

Among the phrases and words being justifiably damned this year are “First Dude”, “iconic”, and “not so much”. My hands are sore from vigorous applause. What’s almost as instructive as the list itself are the comments made by readers. Here’s mine:

Here’s common phrase used in both print and broadcast media used to describe a horrific accident: “ … and then the unthinkable happened.”

Hackneyed to say the least, but its wide application is especially illustrative of the complete lack of imagination behind such clichés. Usually the story describes a terrible car crash following an illegal street race or a spectacular airplane accident at an airshow. Now I ask you: under what circumstances do you suppose a terrible car crash or spectacular airplane accident is most likely to happen?

Sorry. That’s unthinkable.

But my favorites are the ones contributed by, well, let’s just call them the reality-challenged, those who lose their tempers over the whole concept of banning words—as if LSSU were in fact banishing words from the Official Lexicon, absurdly assuming that it has some concrete authority to do so, and isn’t simply making a point about effective language by way of humor. It is difficult to tell if some of these answers aren’t intended as parody. Consider:

What’s the POINT of these lists? Is this is just another attempt at “political correctness”? (I hope that term hasn’t been banned yet!) And tantamount to a stripping of our FIRST AMENDMENT RIGHTS in regard to free speech!

Maybe somebody should make sure that this boy is taking his meds. And meanwhile, restrict his access to firearms. (Note to civil libertarians: this doesn’t violate the Second Amendment if you can demonstrate that he poses a threat to himself or others, which, given the above unequivocal evidence of a tendency to over-react to the least stimulus, is certainly not inconceivable. Never mind that he has a weird idea of what the First Amendment entails.)

Or how about:

Come on dudes, that stuff is harsh. I refer to the pope as being a dude. Slang terms are being integrated more into our society. And banishing them just seems harsh to me. The first dude seems ok to me. But then again, who am I but a stereotyped teenager (18) just like all the rest. We are the future of the world. However scary it may be. dude [sic] isnt [sic] just a word used by skateboarders. Even my 43 year old mom says dude. And i always text [sic]

Scary it certainly is. The author signed herself “Brittany” (itself a danger sign, even though her name is, most oddly, correctly spelled for a change). She seems oblivious to the fact that most of the words on the Banned Word List are not slang, but officious government-speak and journalistic clichés. And aside from being a slave to dudism, Brittany has completely misunderstood the actual nature of slang, which all linguistics experts agree is intended to exclude the general population from a specific group. Your parents aren’t supposed to talk like they’re 18, or in Brittany’s case, 14 —oh fiddlesticks, I guess I’m being harsh. Slang, and its cousin jargon, are supposed to be identifying attributes of Members Only, like secret handshakes and prison tattoos. Which observation allows me to gracefully segue to my next topic.

According to the New York Times, the evolution of slang has accelerated beyond our capacity to keep up with it. Douglas Quenqua advises us in an article titled (a) “From Hip to Lame in All of 20 Seconds” (the web page title), or (b) “Dude, You Are So (Not) Obama” (the headline), that slang terms are falling in and out of fashion so swiftly that they may have lifetimes as short as a few months or even weeks. Quenqua blames electronic media for this, especially texting (another word that should be banned) and the internet, explaining that because new slang is being accepted beyond the group who coined it much more rapidly than ever before, it loses its exclusivity quicker and its original users drop it like a failed sitcom. “Indeed,” Quenqua writes, “it is accepted wisdom among linguists that once a word actually shows up in a slang dictionary, it effectively ceases to be slang.”

But it doesn’t cease to be a record of slang, a window into another world, a resource for readers and writers. Deborah wrote last week that it wasn’t obsolete slang that kept certain period pieces fresh, suggesting instead that the use of phrasing particular to their times might imbue certain works with an enduring quality. I don’t know why she excluded slang, because I think that’s a big part of what gives popular fiction its color, especially if it’s of another time or evokes a specific image. Zooks! Right ho! Gee, you’re swell. Scram. What a peach (or tomato)! Simoleons. Copacetic. Fubar. Groovy. Bummer. Tubular. Scuzzball. Phat. (Although I draw the line at sick as a term of approbation.)

The first real dictionary of slang, at least in English, was published in 1785. It was called A Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue and was compiled by Captain Francis Grose.1 The entries were mostly criminal cant, “St. Giles’s Greek”, but there were the odd University terms (e.g., “chum”, a chamber mate) and tradesmen’s lingo included, too. I use it extensively for Treviscoe stories. And I love my Partridge’s Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English and Chapman’s (now old) New Dictionary of American Slang. I have other sources as well, but those are my favorites. I’m still waiting for the third volume of Lighter’s (formerly Random House and now Oxford) Historical Dictionary of American Slang before I get the first two volumes. Online, there is the Urban Dictionary, a wiki-project slang dictionary that has yet to let me down when I’m looking for current underground expressions.

The one thing I think that is amply demonstrated is how rich slang is and how it may be getting richer. “There are now 2,500 words for ‘drunk.’ Soon there will be 3,500,” says Joseph Green, the editor of the current edition of Chapman. “I think slang is the salsa, the great hot sauce on our language.” I agree. It is precisely the opposite of LSSU’s banned words, which turn the language into a bland and tasteless mush.

1. An incomplete version of Eric Partridge’s edition of the 1796 third edition may be found here. [↩]