Social media spawns new language Adele could do without

I never heard of social media or social networking until the other day when USA Today ran a pitch for it from educators.

It apparently involved Facebook, the Internet, Twitter and the Youtube, all of which I know little about other than they are uses of the computer that can be dangerous not only to the young and ignorant but the old and senile.

I mean, most of the publicity I’ve seen about any of these concerned ways in which one person can humiliate or cheat another person.

How many news stories haven’t we read where some gullible teen is convinced to meet a total stranger she met through one of the above and is sometimes raped, robbed or killed.

How many girls – it’s usually girls, not boys – have used one of these social mediums to try to ruin the reputation of a peer? Adults do it too. Wasn’t there a mother recently who did as much damage as she could to a girl she considered a rival of her own daughter?

Didn’t a girl commit suicide because of what was written about her in hate from a peer?

Yet in the USA news story, educators are using Facebook to communicate with students and parents and encourage that schoolwork be published online.

Even the American library Assn. encourages schools and libraries to think twice before keeping kids off social media, saying such prohibition “does not teach safe behavior and leave youth without the necessary knowledge and skills to protect their privacy or engage in responsible speech.”

Well, excuse my being an old fuddy duddy but I’m not sure relying so much on social media is good for kids. They learn a new language before they are proficient in the old.

Example. I’m about to give up on KING-TV news programs because they are drifting into use of a new language I suspect stems from the computer.

The newscaster has taken to saying he’ll be “back in a few.” A few what? Yes, I know he means minutes but why not say minutes? Back in a few is an unfinished sentence.

But when I switched to KOMO out of disgust, they’ve picked it up there. Some of their reporters are back in a few.

And take the KING girl who delivers traffic progress every ten minutes during the rush hour, she has taken to referring to what’s showing on “the cams.” Not only that, she’s got the weatherman doing it. Now I know they don’t mean cams, which are rotating or sliding pieces that impart motion to a roller moving against its edge (Webster) but since they mean cameras why not say cameras? They can’t save that much time saying cams.

One more. Temps. That’s instead of temperatures, not temporary office employees, so why the hell don’t they say temperatures? They also have this habit of thanking everybody on the show who says anything. The traffic girl gets thanked every ten minutes just for doing her job. Sometimes both of the news reporters thank her EVERY TEN MINUTES.

Last but not least, for pete’s sake, can’t they stop dropping g’s all over the place. If g’s were marbles, you wouldn’t be able to walk in TV studios. It’s movin’ and drivin’ and rainin’ and good mornin’ every damn day. Here I put some of the blame on the president who spoke perfect English during his campaign but has fallen into the habit of dropping his g’s. It was Senate majority leader Harry Reid who said he adjusts his dialect to his audience but he’s doing it now whether his audience is from the south or the north, black or white. If I hear him say, “I’m willin’ to do somethin’” one more time, I’ll scream.

Maybe I’ll just scream anyway. Cams indeed.

–Adele

(Adele can be reached at P.O. Box 69, Hansville, WA 98340)