Michael Reid Roberts

In other words, “bae” is an empty slang vessel, the TIME.com of words. We might also call it a zombie; its meaning was dead from the beginning, but it lives on, mindlessly.

When does slang die? Is it when your mom sends you a link to a TIME.com definition of “bae”? When “shade” becomes a Jeopardy question? When “selfie” beats “twerk” for word of the year? These words have become so removed from their original contexts that the begin to lose their meaning, or at least some of their value. After all, isn’t one of the primary functions of slang to identify the speaker as a member of the community? I don’t care how many episodes of RuPaul’s Drag Race your cool mom has seen, she does not throw shade in quite the way the queens of Paris is Burning do.

In a way, apostrophe is the most relevant poetic trope of the digital age. As we become more and more surrounded by language both real and virtual, we develop a familiarity with texts meant for other eyes and ears.

But isn’t there always an unspoken “I mean” before anything you say? Before every argument, every sentence, every word? You simply draw attention to your own attempt to communicate meaning. Props to you for speaking the unspoken, for meaning what you say, and saying that you mean.

Is a ballgame a series of events, disparate parts, or some kind of whole, something to catch or keep? Or is it an ever-changing probability, waiting to resolve into belonging to someone or other?

This seems more likely, but wouldn’t this acknowledgement of superiority bring a kind of joy? If you are using your education to enforce class boundaries though grammar, then appreciate the chance to do so! That Ivy League school tuaght you to catch errors like these!

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