Language shift is unavoidable, and passing fads of cultural catch phrases and idioms are to be enjoyed. Word’s meanings shift, begin to lose force, take on secondary contrary meanings, and eventually come to mean something wholly different. Idioms that become popular in one field may cross to join the confusing jargon of business analysis, or of political discourse, or of art, and so on.

Some are becoming ambiguously hyperbolic jumbles. Ranting about these is silly, but given the shifts they are undergoing, perhaps they are best avoided in your writing.

A Perfect Storm has become the new “we believe we have found all factors leading to the undesired event, and most of them were somewhat undesirable themselves.” It is a complex world and many of our systems are tightly linked, that does not make every event a perfect storm.

Carrot and Stick is a nice idiom: influence others by withholding a promised reward; as when dangling a carrot from a stick in front of a donkey. It is shifting to suggest influencing others by alternating between delivering a promised reward when small goals are met and punishing with a big stick when small goals are not met.

Sea Change isn’t just a morose Beck album, it is from Shakespeare’s Tempest:

“Full fathom five thy father lies,
Of his bones are coral made,
Those are pearls that were his eyes,
Nothing of him that doth fade,
But doth suffer a sea change,
into something rich and strange,
Sea-nymphs hourly ring his knell,
Ding-dong.
Hark! now I hear them, ding-dong, bell.”

That sounds like a classical metamorphosis to me, not something one experiences when taking on a new job, or doing the same job in a slightly different environment.

Decimate now needs to be used with supporting evidence or abandoned until it has fully lost it’s one-tenth reduction meaning and finally rests as a synonym for annihilated.

The pronunciation of nuclear wants to change to nukular very badly. Nuclaer is awkward; the hard stop of the ‘c’ using the back of the tounge is followed by the ‘l’ formed with the front of the tounge – unavoidably prone to shift.

A martini has become a call drink; with so many drinks ending in -tini and the blur between vodka and gin, abandon all hope of restoring the proper gin to vermouth ratio and order a Hendricks-rocks.

Language change tends to slow, I’m told, as literacy rates increase. With just-in-time learning, will this slow even further? No more will we have to guess at what it means to throw someone under the bus, we can Google it.

Did you think I actually knew that Tempest passage?

For the second Presidential Debate of the 2008 Obama / McCain presidential race, I tried an old psychedelic expirament: synchronization with Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon. It worked better than I expected, and I microblogged the entire experience.

Try it yourself.
Queue up Dark Side of the Moon and begin playing as Tom Brokaw says “Good Evening”.

Yes, this is silly.

I noticed synchronicity a few times:

I’m watching tonight’s debate on mute with Dark Side of the Moon playing. I
call it Dark Side of the Town Hall. 6:41 PM Oct 7th

Started Dark Side right when Tom Brokaw said “Good Evening” - the pulse
background is kinda creepy, laughing, screaming 8:03 PM Oct 7th

Awesome: They shook hands just as Breathe kicked in. IT WORKS! 8:04 PM
Oct 7th

Obama answers his first question to the first stanza of Breathe ♫ “Don’t
be afraid to care / look around, choose your own life” ♫ 8:05 PM Oct 7th

McCain answers his first question to creepy synth pattern of ♫ On The Run
♫ 8:08 PM Oct 7th

“Not You Tom” didn’t synch, then he pauses, then the plane wreck sound
effect at the end of ♫ On The Run ♫, then McCain’s answer. 8:09 PM Oct 7th

Obama “other folks” eh? Oh all of them that come across your desk? ♫ Time
♫ is revving up - clauses end in that droning low E 8:11 PM Oct 7th

McCain on Obama’s cronies as the Gilmours’ solos in ♫ Time ♫ “Buy up
these bad loans” wailing blues 8:13 PM Oct 7th

Obama rebuttal during solo refrain, nicely synced, contine through last
verse of Time and end right as the song ends 8:16 PM Oct 7th

McCain rebuttal backed by Clare Torry. Oohhh “The American workers are the
best in the world” 8:18 PM Oct 7th

Obama makes promises of investment (with what $?) to Ms. Finch during mellow
lull in ♬ The Great Gig in the Sky ♬ 8:21 PM Oct 7th

♬ Money ♬ and McCain’s rebuttal sync perfectly. “Let’s look at our records
instead of rhetoric” “Money…root of all evil today” 8:22 PM Oct 7th

As the sax solo winds gives way to guitar solo in ♬ Money ♬ McCain
describes order of priorities. He’s really good at this. Gilmour I mean. …
8:25 PM Oct 7th

Obama compares himself to JFK as ♬ Money ♬ winds down. Really? /that/ JFK?
Really? “Giving none away” ♬ “Giving none away” ♬ 8:28 PM Oct 7th

McCain describes eliminating government departments by specifically solving
defense spending problems to ♬ Us and Them ♬ Clinton-omics? 8:30 PM Oct
7th

♬ “Haven’t you heard it’s a battle of words / the poster bearer cried Listen
son, said the man with the gun / There’s room for you inside” ♬ 8:32 PM Oct
7th

McCain on nailing Jello to the wall as ♬ Any Colour You Like ♬ begins
(I’ll take Lime with vodka, in a dixie cup) then describes his tax plan …
8:37 PM Oct 7th

Obama describes his tax plan to ♬ Brain Damage ♬, then McCain plays up his
maverick record to the same. 8:41 PM Oct 7th

♬ Eclipse ♬ ends as McCain comments on environment. Nuclear power, or
something like that. 8:45 PM Oct 7th

Debate continues, The Dark Side of the Town Hall does not. ♬ “There is no
dark side of the town hall really. Matter of fact its all dark.” ♬