haha or lol?

If I explained the growth of a gigantic carbuncle on my toe as a process of ‘evolution’ you’d probably head off to the bar for another drink or make some such other excuse to leave my company, right? But then why do people insist on telling me that language is evolving?

More likely, as with the ugly thing sprouting on the edge of my foot, it is becoming hideously deformed.

With every Facebook ‘lol’ I type and ‘innit’ I catch on the tip of my tongue I feel like I’m becoming more slobbering beast than Darwinian king-of-the-food-ladder. And with every badly punctuated ‘Firemans Arms’ pub or cringe-inducing ‘wellness’ I read I imagine our species spiralling back to amoeba status.

I have a special hatred for the word ‘wellness’. When I hear it or see it written in some puffy magazine it never fails to conjure images of rich housewives daintily nibbling scones on the patio and sipping Earl Grey in frilly teacups – “So, Maeve, how’s your health? But more importantly, how’s your wellness?”

It is a pity our language is being destroyed. To hear a Christian say, “God is awesome!”, I’m never sure he means the yippeewowsingasong ‘awesome’ or the real meaning: the inducing of equal parts fear and excitement. One of the most powerful words in the English language is now a guy on the pavement with his trousers around his arse and a baseball cap at a jaunty angle.

Depressing.

And if I read the UK papers correctly, the word ‘immigrant’ now does not mean someone from another country living over here. In the hearts and minds of Brits, ‘immigrant’ means Muslim.

Whenever I see an article bemoaning immigrants I can’t help taking offence. I’m an immigrant and I don’t leech benefits. I’m an immigrant and I’m contributing to the economy and paying taxes. No, no, people tell me, they don’t mean people like you; people with jobs who can speak English; they mean those other people.

What am I then? A pseudo-immigrant? A European returning to the motherland? Sometimes I feel like I’m back in South Africa, only it’s not the Juju Malema’s telling me to bugger off back to where my ancestors possibly came from but the Brits saying I’m not really a Saffer but one of them… shit rugby team and all!

I’m not complaining. I appreciate that I’ve been welcomed with open arms by the country we beat in a World Cup final. In fact, the thought of going back to South Africa fills me with dread; not because I don’t love my country, but because I like it here so much.

I sympathise with the English who see a cleric on a street corner shouting about how evil the British are; especially when said cleric is living in a cosy council house eating food bought with tax money. I also think that if he reckons it’s so shit over here why doesn’t he fuck off back to where he came from.

But don’t shoebox him as an ‘immigrant’. Call him what he is: a stupid prick.

I say this not as a foreigner telling anyone how to run their country, but as a staunch defender of a great language trying to rescue it from obscurity. I love English, and will stand in front of the ‘innit’ wrecking ball as it swings in for destruction.

If only someone would point that wrecking ball at my big toe, maybe I’d get more conversation down the pub.