It's a Madhouse!!!

I enjoy the original Planet of The Apes movies. If you haven’t seen all five go and watch them; I’ll wait for you to get back…Now that you’ve enjoyed all 8 and a half hours of cinematic awesomeness I can get to the point of this entry.  When I first watched these movies in the late 90's I thought the predicted primitive condition of mankind was just a 60’s gloom and doom plot twist not a probable prediction of our posterity's plight.  I am referring specifically to humans losing loosing the ability to speak.  Over generations we became more and more lazy in our speech.

I hadn't given much thought to this until I a word (if it could be called a word) that, sparked in my memory the warning of these movies. I shutter even now when I remember this pivotal moment.   The word was “totes”. Sadly it was not in reference to a bag or even the carrying of a load. As you may be painfully aware it is the truncated form the affirmative statement “totally”.

I believe in trying to convey an idea as succinctly as possible.  But we need to find a balance between the ease of the speaker saying the words and the mental gymnastics required by the listener to understand what is being spoken. Then there is the lack of procession of language.  One need not look hard to find an example; just look at the word "minute".  This word is clearly defined as a 60 second period of time but now it can also mean a much longer interval lasting days or even years.

This linguistic renaissance has not only reduced the beautiful complexity of the English language to monosyllabic grunts and cave paintings but has exalted the mundane to epic and transformed the recent past to classic or old school.