Verbicide (1999)

Abstract

H e entered my office for advice as a freshman advisee sporting nearly perfect SAT scores and an impeccable academic record—by all accounts a young man of considerable promise. During a 20-minute conversation about his academic future, however, he displayed a vocabulary that consisted mostly of two words: cool and really. Almost 800 SAT points hitched to each word. To be fair, he could use them interchangeably, as in “really cool” or “cool … really!” He could also use them singly, presumably for emphasis. When he was a student in a subsequent class, I later confrmed that my first impression of the young scholar was largely accurate and that his vocabulary, and presumably his mind, consisted predominantly of words and images derived from overexposure to television and the new jargon of “computer-speak.” He is no aberration, but an example of a larger problem, not of illiteracy but of diminished literacy in a culture that often sees little reason to use words carefully, however abundantly. Increasingly, student papers, from otherwise very good students, have whole paragraphs that sound like advertising copy. Whether students are talking or writing, a growing number of them have a tenuous grasp on a declining vocabulary. Excise “uh … like … uh” from virtually any teenage conversation, and the effect is like sticking a pin into a balloon.