On the Status of Buggability

      
The ever-changing American lexicon is a joy to play with. As a person who uses a great many words in my work, I am constantly fascinated by the words we use whose meanings get morphed into something entirely different. Some new phrases stay a while and move on, like Valley Girl talk (Well, it’s like too much!) to today’s love of….(seriously?)  Some speech idioms never seem to leave, like corporatespeak (We regret to inform you that your dentifrice does not merit a reconsideration of our warranty.) Dentifrice? Seriously? I just use toothpaste!

Buggable....

There are those words that make their ways into our conversation that seem to stay forever in our speech habits, regardless of our status in life…like the word, bug. I remember when bug was just a reference to a six-legged insect that skittered across the kitchen floor and freaked out the cat or something crawling on a leaf. Not anymore. I can’t even think now when bug became a verb (the infinitive form is to bug.) and an adjective (to be buggable). People bugged us, and we, in turn, bugged them. Things bugged us, and we found a new way to be upset. If we got upset enough, it was possible to become buggable and, God help us, if we were buggable enough, we found ourselves living in the state of Bugville. Ultimately the degree to which we can either bug or be bugged will determine the status of our buggability.

Love and Trust...

There are some words, though, whose meanings should never be tampered with, words like love and trust. Would we want something like trustworthy to become part of word farce games? Maybe not. By our use of words people come to know us, to count on us, or perhaps to disbelieve us. I guess it depends upon how we choose to stand up in the world, for eventually our words will reveal who and how we are….loving, trustworthy, even a little buggable at times.

Cool...

….And then there is cool, the granddaddy of all evolving words, but that, friends, is a whole, ‘nother story.


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