Generation Verb

Have we stumbled into a generation of lost verbs seeking new places in sentences with proper nouns and punctuation still demanding lexical accuracy and traditional syntax?

These new, young and seemingly lost verbs don’t seem to know if they’re meant to be passive or active or should be present continuous. Is this a new generation of verbs making up their own sultry rules? What are they thinking?!

Little lost verbs seem remarkably flexible and bold as they reshape their letters to suit any context. Nouns, prepositions and the much maligned full stop, comma; even the colon, find themselves jostling in response to verbs seeking new places in new sentences. Although, I’m pretty sure it’s the conjunctions that feel the stress most by accommodating maverick verbs and their predilections for flaunting grammatical structure and linguistic expectations.

More disturbing still is the response to verbs that challenge sentence structure: adjectives have gone into hiding and nouns are now longing to become verbs themselves! Text is no longer something you read: it’s something you do. It’s all about getting a message across. Google is no longer a number; it’s an action billions of people delight in doing every second of the day. As for a web log? No: we don’t just have blogs.. we blog.

Verbs have even infiltrated the vernacular in everyday conversation. It seems we no longer have friends, but we friend someone on facebook. Even facebook’s status as a new noun has been challenged by usage: we facebook people.

Generation Verb is changing nouns into active and passive verbs, distorting grammar and showing utter disregard for punctuation: shocking! It’s a quick, impulsive, active Gen Verb that is reshaping the way we relate (called social networking) as well as talk (called messaging).

But (we must pay homage to the faithful conjunction): how exciting! We are living with a generation that wants to be active: to challenge convention by renaming and reshaping. Gen V is on the move, clearly evidenced in the destruction of syntax.

Yes: this can be disturbing for those who revere the subtlety and beauty of finely sculpted language.

However, in playing with linguistic convention, perhaps Gen V is pointing to a shift in social consciousness. It’s time to be active: to do.

Perhaps it is time to be wildly inventive, have a go, get up and move: to be, yes! But to be alive and responsive and utterly creative in the action of making up new sentences in the stories of the lives we are writing in and about.