Is It Time To Start Minding Your Language?

Waiting for your coffee is literally killing you, but it’s OK, ’cos Beyoncé is giving you life on Insta. It might be totes LOL, but is it time to start minding your language?

- Penny Carroll

If the internet is to be believed, people around the world are dying every single day, not from acts of terror, crime or natural disasters, but the extreme, unbearable cuteness of puppies. Add hilarious memes and awkward Bumble blunders into the equation and it’s a wonder anyone is still breathing. And yet, no one is in the least bit concerned. Of course not, because – LOL – it turns out we all speak like melodramatic teenagers now. ‘Dead’ and ‘dyingggg’ are our go-to reactions to anything mildly funny, embarrassing or cute; we’re ‘obsessed’ with avocado and royal babies; and everything from Gaga to cold-drip coffee is ‘literally, life’. We’re hooked on hyperbole – and dictionaries can barely keep up. In fact, our insistence on using the word ‘literally’ figuratively has led to its definition being officially updated to include its second, diametrically opposed meaning. Whelp.

Extreme Queens

It’d be weird if it wasn’t so predictable. According to Monash University linguist Professor Kate Burridge, we’ve been prone to exaggeration for, like, ever. “It’s something that humans have always done,” she shrugs. “I think we are just natural-born exaggerators. [For example] the recruiting of really gruesome words and strong, powerful words like ‘terribly’ or ‘horribly’ to mean ‘very’ – that’s centuries old.”