Post #6

Thought for the day

There’s no limit to what can be accomplished if it doesn’t matter who gets the credit.

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Warning: This blog is pretty long, but it’s something I felt like saying.

Grandma and I were in a fast food place the other day—as we often are—and suddenly realized that, aside from our own conversation, we didn’t understand any of what was being said by others in the place. We counted at least four different languages being spoken, none of which was English. Of course, it was good to see the mixture of cultures gathering peacefully in one place, but we both had a deep feeling of not belonging, of being strangers in our own country. Then, as we talked, we realized that unfamiliarity with languages other than our own was not the only thing that isolated us.
Take TV commercials, for instance. They make us just sit and shake our heads in disbelief. It used to be that we could see and hear a TV commercial and understand, not only what they were saying but also what it was they were trying to sell. No more! Today’s TV swings from one spot to the next so quickly–without even a cursory pause–that there’s not enough time for us to take it all in. I recall a time when advertisers demanded that no competing product could be shown in the same time slot as their own. That, obviously, is no longer the case. In a single commercial break recently, I saw what at first I thought was a single three-minute commercial for Mercedes-Benz. Guess again! By the time I recognized the Mercedes tri-foil logo, it had morphed into a fancy Toyota Prius, and that was quickly followed by Fords, Chevrolets, and Mazdas zoom, zoom, zooming across the screen, all in one continuous parade. I doubt very much that they had all gotten together and produced a multi-product commercial, but it sure looked that way.
Another thing that is a mystery to us is the whole world of electronics. I’d like to think that Grandma and I are relatively intelligent, but the field of electronics is something that just baffles us. Our grandchildren walk around with listening devices plugged into their ears, and speak of things like e-pods, i-pods, BlueTooths, (or is it blue teeth?) Blackberries, WiFi, and who knows what else? And when our two sons-in-law get together, the computer talk flows like the water over Niagara Falls. I, for one, am really interested in what they’re saying but I just don’t understand it. They may be speaking a real language but it’s not one that either Betty or I recognize. For all we know, they might just be making up words to confuse us. If so, they have been very successful.
And then there’s the daily jargon that goes along with all of those electronic gadgets. Texting and Instant messages zip right by these old eyes and ears. Conceding that young people can do almost anything they set their minds to, I still don’t understand how in the world they make their thumbs work so fast when they send text messages. And, again, what language are they using? And how did they go about learning it? Did someone sit down one day and decide to abbreviate or make acronyms of all important words and put them into a giant dictionary where only those who had the proper equipment could have access to it? There are literally hundreds of these acronyms and abbreviations, and I can’t even guess at what most of the letter combinations stand for. Some, though, I have finally figured out: try LOL (laughing out loud.) That’s an easy one now that someone has told me what it means. And there’s GG (gotta go), GIWIST (gee, I wish I’d said that), FWIW (for what it’s worth), and HHOJ (ha, ha, only joking). And these are just a few of the more common–and printable ones.
If you think that present-day jargon bothers us, don’t let me even start talking about cell phones! I don’t know anything about them and don’t want to. Just give us a phone with buttons marked “talk” and “listen.” Is that too much to ask?
It's not that we dislike many of the things that run rampant in our society today. It’s just that, well…I guess it’s just that we dislike feeling like outsiders, and having that uncomfortable feeling of never quite understanding what’s going on around us.
There is a positive side to all of this confusion though; it has given us a greater appreciation and respect for the many people who have come here from other countries. They must feel hopelessly like outsiders having to fill out forms they can’t read, shopping in market places that usually don’t have the food they’re used to eating, trying to understand directions, applying for jobs, and so many other things. If we are sometimes confused and feel left out of things, just imagine how they must feel––all the time.
Well, I guess that by comparison, we are not so isolated after all. At least we can speak English.