Our English Is Advanced
I was at Burger King today, and they have a sign promoting Icees, and it reads: “BE CHILL. COOL IT WITH YOUR FAV FLAV.”
It made me think a bit, because, I mean: wow, this counts as communication in today’s world. If a time-traveller from 200 years ago was plunked down in the middle of a busy metropolis today, his greatest difficulty wouldn’t be in navigating the new technology, or understanding our modern laws; no, it would be just trying to figure out what the hell everybody is saying.
I mean, check out the text of that sign again. Try to figure out what any of it means once you decontexualize it from its “coolspeak”. IT. DOESN’T. MEAN. ANYTHING. Yet, still, we understand it, because we have all of the cultural experience of the past whatever years of slang and ad-speak to fall back on. We can understand the craziest jargon instinctively, even though the words literally mean nothing. I mean, for fuck’s sake, “chill” is technically a NOUN.
So that’s what I was thinking about while eating my food at Burger King today.
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EDIT: Okay, yes, “chill” is also a verb. However, it’s only been a little while since we’ve been using it as an adjective.
