Beware Linguistic Gentrification

By HT Kennedy, Editor

Modern trends in vernacular English can be misleading for the non-native speaker. Attempts to sound polite and refined often beget the unnecessary supplanting of terms thought profane or inappropriate.

Examine the words poop and pee which are predominant substitutes for feces and urine, i.e., shit and piss. All of the aforesaid terms apply to the purging of waste, a biological imperative for any organism. Offense or embarrassment when referring to excrement is both smug and infantile. Further, these purportedly genteel glosses bear identical semantic value to their indecorous counterparts. 

During the course of acquisition of the English language, it is important to acknowledge the validity of mores and norms where formal converse and correspondence are concerned. However, lexical sincerity should – and can – take precedence over nonsensical onomatopoeia and/or inane, if not superfluous, idioms employed for the sake of moral propriety. Let us avoid the influence of linguistic gentrification when speaking and writing, in favor of candor and transparency. Said policy will negate requisite for childish jargon such as poop and pee.