Please don’t read this, I’m begging you. See, you would think that when I start off an article that way I am actually hoping that you would literally click the back arrow (it’s right up there) and go back to whatever you were doing before you made this mistake. But sadly, I desperately want you to read this and more tragically, you probably will. There is something happening in our country and we desperately need to talk about it. Words no longer have meaning it seems, but I’m here to tell you that they do. I know this is controversial, I know this is a ‘hot take,’ but someone has to do it. I’ll be devoured by your hatred and will arise even stronger. Let’s blast.

 

In case you were confused, here are a couple of words that have seemed to lost meaning along with their actual descriptions.

 

Blockchain: What is it? Who knows. Who needs it? Who knows. Will my wife ever love me? Yet again, who knows.

 

Freedom: Many people are now gathering in their homes to say the word ‘freedom’ while shaking hands with each other  for hours on end. Despite their best efforts, we still don’t seem to understand that freedom means being everything you ever want to be instead of trying to be the closest you can be to one thing.

 

lol: While we all know its origins as meaning ‘laugh out loud’ or ‘lots of love’ if you’re my mom, the truth is that there is much more to this little squib of a word than meets the eye. So much that it cannot even be defined with traditional means. Lexicographers around the world have tried and failed to encompass all the different ways people use and understand an lol in conversation. lol has become an enigma, a mystery to be solved.

 

Sandwich: Every time the hotdog vs. taco. vs. sandwich vs. Godzilla conversation comes down my timeline I feel like I need to scream. Without words that tie to share meaning, society falls apart. If I say, “Hey man, get me a sandwich when you’re out” and you bring me back a hot dog, we might have to fight.

 

Autonomous vehicle: Does anyone know what this means? I’m genuinely asking. I keep reading articles about Google and Facebook or whoever dropping self-driving cars into our streets and I have no clue what that is going to be like. Are the cars sentient? Who gave these cars consciousness? Why would we do that to them? They were innocent.  Wait, just remembered fossil fuel. Yeah, screw em.

 

The Void: Like lol, the void is indefinable, as each person’s void is different. The most important thing to remember if you don’t remember anything else from this is that we all must fear the void in order to find true happiness. They say there are many ways, but there is one. The void.

 

Hope this clears things up!

 

 

 

 

This was “written” by Nathan Ellwood, by which I mean that the ghost inhabited my body while this was created. Follow him @NPEllwood.