Saturday, February 26, 2011

Luddite's Lament

When I was in high school, every Monday my English teacher would hand out "vocabulary sheets" with a list of words and their definitions.  We had until Friday to learn them.  I wonder how that method would work now when vocabulary meanings seem to change daily.  Apple is now a computer, not a fruit.  Blackberry is a phone.  When I'm online, I'm not standing in a queue.  My cell contains contacts, not DNA.  Signing on used to mean joining a group, not sitting alone at your desk gazing at a monitor.  And a monitor was someone who watched what you were doing.  Imagine Big Brother on an 18" flat screen, measured on the diagonal of course.  We've even usurped bird speak.  We tweet and twitter now.

Like Charlie Chaplin, I stand in front of the conveyor belt of modern vocabulary, watching as words too rapidly pass me by.  I cannot turn the wheels of progress fast enough.  But, that's JMO.  Sorry G2G. 

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