a little levity

Today was another rough day, so it's time to finally re-write the funny exchange I had last week.  Maybe it will make me smile although, considering the circumstances - unlikely.

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I was hanging out with a friend of mine a few days ago, having a conversation about basically nothing - or least nothing of any importance.  It was a lowkey situation, we were having a cocktail and just relaxing, shooting the shit.  Let's call this friend F for ease of use.  At some point, F said a word - which I cannot recall any longer - that was not, in fact, a word.  I must have made a face because he said...
"You and your Ivy League degree.  That may not actually BE a word, but it SHOULD be."

I knew I was done for.  This particular friend of mine likes to rant, and I just knew this was a topic he'd eat alive.

"Here's my thing about made-up words.  Let's look back in history.  Years and years ago, what was there for language?"

I wasn't sure if this was rhetorical or not, but let's face it, I'm a pain in the ass know-it-all, so I  just had to answer...

"Latin?"

"Yes, LATIN.  From Latin comes the romance languages and eventually English.  Well, how the hell did we get to there?  The same way I just came up with .  We made shit up.  Take mal - bad, mal, male - what's bad in Spanish? (I told him it was malo) - most of those look the same except bad - who came up with bad?"

At this point, the 2 glasses of wine I'd had were enough to get me smirking a bit, because I knew this was the beginning of some serious entertainment, inside of which was a fairly decent point.

"So when I want to make  up a word - why can't I?  I should send to Webster.  It is a GREAT word.  What makes me any less equipped to make up a word than anyone else.  Look at some new words.  "Doh!" - from The Simpsons.  The verbs friend or unfriend or de-friend or whatever - from Facebook.  Didn't GWB make up "strategery" or some nonsense like that?  The list is unending! 

And if you really think about it, if you expand on this - remember Ebonics?  The big controversy about Ebonics in the 80s.  Why was that such a big deal?  Wasn't it just another example of people taking an "established" language - I can't say the national language because we don't actually have one - and modifying it to fit their lives, their culture, their world?  Why did everyone make such a big stink about that?  People from the south, from Texas, even from Boston did something similar.   I don't get it."

At that point, I was sitting there, mouth most likely drooping open, amazed.  A random rambling diatribe, prompted by F being a silly spaz and making up a word that made perfect sense and in no way resembled an actual word, had hit the nail on the proverbial head.

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I must say, I embellished the story, but only slightly.  I think F would approve.