Language inflation Essay Example

fantastic creatures, which were more than pretty cool.

Language inflation particularly cheapens our understanding of the Scriptures. Jesus Christ is called wonderful. He is truly full of wonder. The Lord God is awesome. These words have powerful meanings that a modern reader can’t instantly grasp. As a child of the 80s I was always uncomfortable calling God awesome like my Christian friends did because I knew that they meant something much less by the use of that word than was fitting to God. If my sunglasses are totally awesome, I need some other word for God!

What’s even more disturbing to me is the trend to use negative words positively. In the 80s, bad was good. Two decades later sick was even better. I suspect that this trend is more than just sloppiness with words. I suspect that this is really a worldview issue as our culture retreats more and more away from Truth, Goodness, and Beauty. We’ve long preferred ugliness to beauty culturally; it makes sense that our language would reflect that as well. That’s the only way that I can understand how calling something sick is a compliment.

Our souls starve and atrophy in the current culture. We neglect the spiritual aspects of our own being more and more. It makes sense that the language would reflect that as well. Caring primarily for our physical needs, we run across fewer and fewer moments that inspire us with true awe or fill us wonder. Those emotions would require an encounter with the sublime and the time to contemplate it. Who’s got the time or the desire for that? We’ll settle for

pretty good experiences and call them totally awesome.