The evolution of language

As we all know, language changes and evolves over the years.  The most extreme example of this is Dutch.  Apparently a few hundred years ago they changed the language so much (I believe officially) that a modern Dutch speaker is completely unable to understand Dutch writing from four hundred years ago.  An English speaker would have trouble with English from the same era, but at least would be able to gain some limited understanding.

As anyone who has ever used the internet, especially to play online games, a whole range of new languages has emerged, designed to baffle and confuse.  One of these is L33t speak (elite speak), where, as in the title, numbers and symbols are used to make up the written words.  This language is particularly useful for proclaiming one's awesomeness (I'm sure that word is wrong, it just looks wrong) while simultaneously bagging out or attacking your opponents. Unfortunately, I don't speak it.

The whole texting language is another such one.  While entirely appropriate, (although not always entirely legible) when used to compose a message of 160 characters or less, is it really needed when writing emails, posting to internet forums or writing blogs?  There is only one good thing to say about texting language.  If you ever look on an internet dating site, you can immediately pick out the retards by the fact that have no grammar, punctuation, capitols and in some cases, no real words!

Anyway, the point of this post was that I was thinking about some of the language I use which differs from the traditional meaning.  Some of these I have made up myself, some have come from pop culture or god knows where else.  But they all work.  Examples:

Bat shit insane:  As in "Those Colombian kayakers are bat shit insane.  They apparently just run drops completely blind, no idea what's at the bottom."

I think I made that one up, not sure.  It's for people who consciously do crazy things with no real idea of consequences.

Shocked and appalled.  As in "You ate my last yoplait out of the fridge.  I'm shocked and appalled."

This is used to indicate that you don't approve of someone's behaviour, but is used in an over the top way.  You wouldn't use it if someone told you they'd just killed their family with a hammer, for example.

Chunky.  As in "That rapid looks really chunky, there's lots of holes and rocks and a massive stopper at the bottom".

Again a kayaking reference.  Think I made this one up as well, but it's perfectly apt at describing a rapid that is big, scary and doesn't have a particularly clean line.

Shiny. As in "You give me the money you owe me and everything will be shiny."  This is actually stolen from Firefly and Serenity.  But it's still good.  

20/20 hindsight.  As in "Yeah, I have perfect 20/20 hindsight."

I think this is one of mine.  I like it, whether it is or not.

Interweb.  As in "I'll do a search on the interweb for that."

I definitely didn't make this one up, it's a tongue in cheek reference which annoys nerds.

I wish I could think of a few more, but they're just not coming at the moment.  Still, you get the idea.  And just to finish it off, thanks to the power of the interweb, here's the perfect illustration for this post. I actually cut this out of the newspaper many years ago and I still have it somewhere, taped into the front of a binder.  Of course I have no idea where exactly that binder is, but it doesn't matter.