All Words Are Made Up
A friend and I are waiting at a bus stop, talking about the day we both had at work that day.
Me: “…She’s the goated rep in the sales department and the one to beat.”
A stranger at the bus stop next to us, an older lady, throws her hands up in the air and looks at us.
Stranger: “Ugh, stop making up words!”
My friend and I both turn to the stranger.
Me: “Pardon me?”
Stranger: “You young people and your annoying slang! It’s juvenile! Goated is not a word!”
Me: “I could make up words all day, what business is that of yours?”
Stranger: “You’re talking loudly at a bus stop and forcing me to hear your junk talk!”
My friend has opened his phone and is now showing a screen on his Merriam-Webster dictionary app.
Friend: “Goated is a word, as recognized by the Merriam-Webster dictionary. Language evolves, lady.”
Stranger: “Ugh, even the dictionary is being ruined by your generation!”
Me: “Okay, well, we’re going to go back to our conversation now.”
Stranger: “And a stupid conversation it is, too!”
My friend has opened something else on his phone and holds it out to the stranger.
Friend: “Can you read that?”
Stranger: *Squinting.* “What’s that crap?”
Friend: “That’s Beowulf. A poem from over a thousand years ago… written in English. At least, that is what English looked like at the time.”
The stranger looks at the first line, “Hwæt. We Gardena in geardagum,” and rolls her eyes.
Stranger: “You wouldn’t be so smart if you didn’t always use your phone.”
Friend: “Yes, but I do know how to use my words, old and new.”
The stranger just harrumphed, and we continued our conversation, maybe a little louder this time, and I might have thrown in the occasional ‘skibidi’ for good measure just to p*** off the crazy stranger, even though I have no idea what it means…
