SHEOPLE SPEAK
Part
2
Why do sheople speak people say kind’ve most of the time – is it because
the other types of ‘ves don’t sound as kind as kind’ve? Although those speakers often do spew out all
the ‘ves in rapid succession to make sure that more is more, their statements
would really mean more if they said less and less, with the wisdom of less is
more. Or in more or less common parlance
– “Too much custard kills the caviar”.
Turbo talking people suffer the most from Word Addiction Disorder. They are word fashion victims, and the most
dangerous carriers of the disease, being unaware of infecting gullible others in
search of social acceptance.
If all nervous turbo talkers slowed
down, they would have more time to hear the crap coming out of their mouths and
perhaps say something sensible.
Kind’ve is also used by super cool ‘guys’ of both genders and the
trendsome LGBTQIA non-binary guys and guyesses.
This makes the non-exclusiveness of kind’ve one of the best examples of
the benefits of living in a free liberal PC democrassy.
Good coves and cove-esses of
yesteryear, such as Bertie Wooster and his Aunt Dahlia, would have listened to
the wisdom of fish-eating Jeeves (the gentleman’s gentleman) to curb their mis-use
of useful words and phrases. But nowadays,
when ignorance and stupidity are democratic rights of free speech – albeit
surreptitiously controlled by the Speech Police in the Department for Political
Correctosserty, the DPC in Whitehall
The kindovisation of the world is
nigh!
Some lawyers and English language
professors could be convulsed with ribald laughter over the trendy plebs’
stupid use of kind’ve and its close cousins.
But they only wince upon hearing politicians and public speakers
repeating the word impact. This is
probably because impact in validated in the OED, so it’s supposed to work when
spoken, and when printed on the pages of a speechwriter’s speech. Impact has impact, so the impactossers think,
even when there’s no actual impact smashing things to smithereens, only brain
pain. Whereas kind’ve, sort’ve, type’ve
like, y’nowo’amin, are insidious
idiolects which don’t appear to impactivate any pain on sheople’s brains.
* * * * *
Before going any further down the
up-coming pages of this essay, I must not forget to remember to say that I am
not, and never have been a scholar of English Language, nor English Literature
– lest anyone could possibly think that I’m a serious academic intellectual
analysing the hapless habits of humans.
Writing for fun (one of my favourite
OCPTs) flows naturally from open-minded receptive listening to what people say
and the way they say it. My ears are the
fast lane to the brain, avoiding any noisy congestion lurking in the mind. When the brain has registered the
information, the mind can make up its mind to write something, say something, or
do nothing and be content with enough is enough. Maybe there is some wisdom in the phrase,
“Don’t just do something, sit there”.
Paradoxically, this open attentive listening
involves hearing a lot of verbal diarrhoea and only a few pearly words of
wisdom. Fortunately, my musician’s ears
have become accustomed over the years to hearing all sounds in binaural surround
sound, and thus the freedom to focus on any one of those sounds attracting
extra attention. It’s audio zoom lensing
into one small part of a big musical picture, and then zooming back out in
order to zoom back in again to hear something else that may be making a mess of
the music.
In rehearsal, a symphony orchestra conductor hears a percussionist adding
one unwritten beat which sounds like a natural grace note. He then hears a trombone player repeating
bellicoso bum notes which dis-grace the delicato of the fellato horns. Therefore the conductor’s ears (and arms)
need to be in a wide open state of awareness – fully conscious of invisible
sounds.
When I’m not making spontaneous music, my flabber is often ghasted by the
deaf-earism of radio and television producers, who not only use all the ‘ves themselves,
but also give free airtime to kindovisation activists who spit out the ‘ves 10-to-the-dozen
across the world, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week via the broadcasting media. I could have said 24/7, but that’s just more
turbo talk.
Beware – nervous turbo verbals are
everywhere!
I dare not condemn the kind’ve fools
because I am a fool myself in other ways.
But as a part-time fool I can still use my so-called democratic freedom
of speech to comment on the foolishness of others, who diss my gruntle with their
sickening super-fast repetition of the two simple words kind of and their
cohorts.
Does anyone enjoy the millions of ’ves
spat out through sheople speak?
In the full shortness of human hurry
time, the kind’ves might fade away, as did ‘the elephant in the room’ that
jumped through ‘a window of opportunity’ to escape from the human shit and
shenanigans of corporate, political, religious and media morning meetings. Those once fashionable elephant of opportunity
phrases were much longer and heavier than the turbo-tongue motor-mouth speed of
all the ’ves which whizz past the ears of semi-conscious sheople.
By the way, the word robust has also
faded from fashion – wasn’t it robust enough to withstand ridiculous
repetition?
* * * * *
Last year at the Way-on-High Book
Festival, Ahmed Winterbottom, respected historical novel writer on the short
list of nominees for the Booker Prize, gave a talk about his new book, during
which he constantly repeated all the aforementioned worthless words and phrases
with the nept ineptitude of an experienced inepticist attempting to communicate
with the audients, who listened in rapt attention without questioning the
kind’ve-isation of his public speaking in the Q&A session. After a little polite applause, the shit-lit
loving audients shuffled out to the nearest watering hole to wash down the
waffle.
Suitably refreshed, the lit-lovers
returned to hear an unexpectedly clear and simple, no-nonsense, plain-boiled,
straight-talking talk by Yasmin Finklater, another one of those colourful
fusion-food cook book writers, and an enthusiastic domestic scientist, who gave
a sizzling performance with her demonstration of 101 things to do at home with
a pot of Parkers Original Potassium Permanganate. Whereupon, the audients gave her a standing
ovation and then bought both her books.
The following day, Professor Winton
Winstanley rose to the podium and spoke about his book on the sexual encounters
of old folks in care homes. Again, no-one
seemed to notice the kind’ve-isation of his talk. Even the old folks champion Joe Wakebell, who
listened with avid interest, didn’t raise a wise old eyebrow. I wonder why.
Could it be that the gap between the spoken word and the written word is
expanding as fast as the gap between the rich and the poor – becoming almost
acceptable?
If kindovisation continues, the time
could come when a baby’s first words are “I kind’ve like need a type’ve nipple
to sort’ve suck on, mamma”. And when
dadda is reading a bedtime story to the other sprogs – “Once upon a type’ve
time on a dark and sort’ve stormy kind’ve like night…....”
Who started all this kind’ve
stuff? What’s the back-story narrative?
Where is the narrativisation of the back-storyism which media speakers think is
so essential for any discussion about any aspect of human culture? Can kindovisation be back-storied and
narrativised? Or is the 21st century
idiolectrified culture still waiting to be back-storycled and narrativated by
glottochronological psycho-socio linguisticists?
With little or no evidence as to who
started kindovisation, the search for suspects automatically turns towards the
great pioneers and powerful perpetrators of
idiolectualism – the Americans who pretend to sprechen sie Englisch. I guess I guess with the glottoful
guessedness of a guess-gambling American that it’s futile to accuse the
Germans, Russians, Chinese and French for spreading sheople speak in English,
even though they may have some kinds of kind’ves in their own languages.
In political parlance, let’s be
absolutely clear about kick-starting this with a clarity that is absolute. Clearly, after all is done and said at the day
of the end forward going (rolling out a raft of outcome models for kick-starting
hard-working families working harduously for income outcomes, up and down and
down and up the country) English is absolutely clearly the international
impactivating language with absolutely challenging impacts clearly outcomed
from kick-starting a silver bullet shooting itself in the foot, to absolutely cut
off its nose to clearly spite its face, and then being challenged to step up to
the plate and absolutely bite the bullet.
What a lot of old codswallop, as
they say in Grimsby-on-Sea
But let’s not over over-egg the
kedgeree, because the anti-social abusers of clearly and absolutely, asbolutely
deserve to be served with an ASBO, or better still, shut up in a long custodial
sentence.
Meanwhile, the kindovisation of
spoken English continues apace.
I think most people, after conscious
consideration, would agree that on the frontline of frontline verbage, kind’ve
is no match or model for the word impact, which is currently enjoying worldwide
success. But fuck still has the most
enduring worldwide effect on the human organism. This is because the fearsome power of cunt is
only let out for special occasions, unless accompanied by its close cuntry
cousin respectfully dressed in country clothes – so to speak, as it were, if
you will, ‘scuse my Scouse, blah, blah, blah.
The kind’ves will always be wet,
wimpish, cringe-making, Z-list fly-by-night words which say nothing, and yet
say everything about the people who spew them out all day long. So what happens
at night when sheople are dreaming? If
humans can dream in words, are their sweet dreams stuffed with thousands of
kind’ves, type’ves and sort’ves? Sounds
more like a nightmare to me.
One last rhetorical question. Do highly trained professional specialists
speak to their colleagues with worthless words when they’re working? The airline pilot to ATC – “I’m just kind’ve
coming in to land this sort’ve 400 ton flying cattle truck”. The rocket scientist to the astronaut – “I’m
kind’ve guiding your sort’ve 3,000 degree white hot capsule’s kind’ve like
22,000 mph re-entry into the earth’s atmosphere”. The
brain surgeon to surgical assistant – “I sort’ve need a kind’ve knife to like
cut this man’s head open”.
I rest my case, lest one arm gets
longer than the other.
By now we, or at least I can see
that these highly addictive ‘ves corrupt the meaning, probity, lucidity and
eloquent flow of spoken words – and written words. But the contagion continues, similar to Chinese
and Russian Oligarch ill-gotten gains contaminating the London property market,
not to mention Burmese budgerigar bird flu – fuck, I’ve just kind’ve like mentioned
it.
Oh well, I’m hooked. I’ve been kind’ve-ised by a kind’ve like
kind’veness which is kind’ve difficult to give up. Maybe I should move into the Word Addiction
Rehabilitation Retreat and live on a strict diet of turkey talk for a few
weeks. Or else take 12 tentative steep steps up to the welcoming portals of
Wordoholics Anonymous. In the meantime, I’ll
savour the flavours of this somewhat satirical wordplay, inspired by the hapless
habits of humans.
In codaful conclusion without
repeating to fade, RTF in session musicians’ jargon, you may be as annoyed and
amused as much as I am by all the verbal stuff and nonsense. At least it’s been a lot of fun for me and my
favourite typochology lady, who is always willing to brace herself for the full
thrust of a few more thousand words, despite a little difficulty in making sheople
speak readable.
It might be fun to read it
backwards, or read it out loud to treasured friends over a whass of gliskey,
but as I have found, some words may need pronunciation practice before
beginning.
“You’re mad” – said the pleb.
“Who isn’t” – said the wise man.
