Everyday, technology is progressing and culture just as well, or at least one would expect. Incidentally, however, while culture is in a hit-or-miss state in terms of survival, our rhetoric is diminishing wildly.

During the nineteenth and twentieth centuries – when, to be fair, novels and stage-plays were the sole form of entertainment – the standard language of Americans was flourishing and full of definition. The entirety of two pages could be used to dissect the exact feeling a person was feeling in that moment of the story. That’s no exaggeration. I’ve spent the summer reading old literature for a summer class, and initially I found it remarkably frustrating to digest the phrases, words, and statements being thrown at me. It seemed unnecessary and often times redundant; what was the purpose in elaborating these ideas in such a manner, when it could have been summed up into a single sentence? After all, is that not how American culture has come to adapt amongst Millennials and beyond?

Short and sweet is the way to go, right?

Aside from my first disgruntled feelings, it didn’t take me long to fall in love with this style of literature, nor did it take me much longer to come to terms with what is missing from our culture: definition.

We live in a world dominated by Vine, Buzzfeed articles, and memes. Everything’s gotta be spelled out, everything is quick and to the point, and elaboration is fleeting. Our attention spans are getting lopped off at the neck. We speak in short sentences, if not due to our own tendencies, but for the listener who can only listen for ten seconds at a time. Now, I like a good meme just as much as the next guy, but therein lies the conundrum - pretty much every person is the next guy. Our jokes are centered around seeing an image and responding with “Me AF.” Is that the worst thing in the world? Heck no, man. The issue lies in the byproduct.

As videos get shorter and our responses get briefer, the very content of our being is losing its touch. If there’s something that we like — be it an event, a film, an album, you name it — it’s “lit.” Of course, “lit” slips outta my mouth more than I’d like, but a man can only do some much when living in a sea of the same word over and over and over. And that’s not to say that everyone needs to speak like a colonial Englishmen, but at a certain point, our vocabulary loses its definition because we simply don’t know how to use the words properly. In the words of Louis C.K., “we go right for the top shelf with our words now. We don’t think about how we talk.” In turn, we not only limit ourselves to a grounded base of expression, but we’re slowly killing a world of words that has been built for over a thousand years. Everything is at the extremes. If you don’t believe that, look at the word “awesome.” It’s far too late for that word to find salvation back to its once-inherent; try using that in a serious context when attempting to establish the true awe of something, and tell me it doesn’t sound like you might as well be saying “radical!”

All in all, this is no attempt to insult my Millenials (we all know how thick the skin of the average Millennial is, or isn’t). It is merely a commentary of how our culture is adapting. But with such a brilliant plethora of words at our disposal at all times, what’s stopping us from utilizing them? Is it because we don’t know them? Or is it because we think our peers won’t understand them? Either way, the opportunity will never die, unless we outright abandon this world of language until, hundreds of years from now, our dictionaries are 50 pages long. So by all means, keep your manner of speaking, for it is what makes you you - I know that I’ll always keep “dope” and “sick” on standby at all times. But challenge yourself; when you see a word you don’t understand, don’t only look it up, but start using it in everyday conversation. Expand your mind, and watch as your mind and expressions begin to breathe life that’s been waiting inside you. All those times you find yourself frustrated because you don’t know the right words will begin to depart. For brevity is only the soul of wit when the the soul holds the full meaning. That’s where the wit lies, not from the brevity, but from the compression of deep dense thought.

See, now that'd be a Buzzfeed article worth reading.

“Top 15 Words You Didn’t Know Existed! You’ll Never Believe #6!”