The Loss of Lingo

As the years pass, I use campus lingo less and less, because I have fewer people to speak it with.

Given that there are MA theses talking about how campus lingo is merely a way for ingroup identification, maybe this is not such a grave loss in the larger scheme of things. There are some terms, though, which I wish would have spread beyond the IIM Bangalore campus.

Back during my MBA, the response to seeing somebody trying too hard to attract attention (whether of professors, the opposite sex, or message board frequenters) was to call them ‘footage hungry buggers’, perhaps kick them a bit, and then move on with life. Then we left campus, formed other friendships and relationships, and forgot all about this phrase.

What a tragedy. For if language influences thought, then the world we live in today desperately needs the phrase ‘footage hungry bugger’ so that, when confronted with unwarranted demands on our attention, we can respond appropriately by naming them and then dismissing them. Because there are so many footage hungry buggers in the world right now. Trolls on twitter. People who appear on news channel primetime ‘debates’. People who conduct news channel primetime debates. A Prime Minister who unerringly locates the camera. How much happier our life would be, if we merely named them, and in doing so, slayed them.

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