In Her Cups

I was sent a link to a funny video that is about a voicemail from a woman who is quite inebriated leaving a message for a guy she just met. She rambles on about wanting to hear from the guy and how to get in touch with her. The thing is that now-a-days, you make one stupid mistake like that and it’s all over the Internet for millions to see. There are no last names mentioned, so I guess it is still somewhat anonymous, but she does mention that she works at E-Bay.

My mother always told me that no one respects a “lady in her cups”. I never knew where that phrase came from so I looked it up. The word “cup” has its origin from Middle English cuppe, from Old English, from Late Latin cuppa, drinking vessel, perhaps variant of Latin cpa, tub, cask, and the phrase “in her cups” is an old English phrase which came from the fact that the word “cups” is defined as the drinking of intoxicating beverages, hence saying one is in their cups means they are drunk. Figures my mother would use an English phrase as my grandmother was educated in England.

At any rate doing anything under the influence of any mind altering substance will get you in trouble most of the time. To help, believe it or not there is actually an iPhone app to help you avoid drunk texting and one that will help avoid drunk posting to Facebook or other social media. I gather that would be quite useful for those people who frequently fail to contain themselves once they have drunk more than they should. Maybe the girl in the video should look into it. But then again why deny us the delight of listening to her inebriated rambling?

The English Language

I read an editorial a while back about people saying "oh my God!" and the writer thought it was very bad. He, being a Christian man, was highly offended. It never occurred to me that it could an objectionable expression. However, the other night I watched an episode of Extreme Makeover - Home Edition that feature a woman from Jamaica who had her house, and her whole neighborhood, renovated. At the end of the show she and her family got to go through the house and marvel at the transformation. They went running through the house and all the said was "oh my God!" over and over again whenever they went into the room for the first time. As I was watching, I thought about editorial I read. I wasn't necessarily offended by her outbursts, but after a few times, I really got tired of hearing it. It began to grate on my nerves so I changed the channel and turned my attention to something else.
My late step-father had his doctorate in English and would often remark that Americans by and large have a very limited vocabulary. He would say that there are so many words in the English language and we use about a tenth of them. Some of them aren't even in the proper dictionary! I think that he blamed the education system mostly, but he also lamented that people are just plain lazy.

It's hard to learn a new word. You have to remember the word, remember how to use the word properly, and then think about when to use that word again. When you write, you can always cheat and use the tools in your word processor to help you find another word in its place. But when you are speaking you have to remember that you already said that would and it's hard to not say it again. In a situation when excitement takes over, you are overwhelmed and your brain can get stuck on the same phrase over and over again. It's easy to become repetitive without realizing it. I suppose if one is more versed in their vocabulary, one might be able to vary one's speech. But in the heat of the moment one finds themselves blurting out the same expletive over and over again without thinking about it.

I often wonder about the origin of language. How did it grow from the simple utterances that the very early humans made? How did the early human realize that they had the ability to form words and decide that "milk", for example, means a white liquid that comes from mammals? I find it fascinating.