Trickling Down

There’s a trend happening right now and I’m here to call attention to it. I want it to stop. It’s a bit like when you are young and you start imitating your parents. But that’s what’s confusing. When you are older, don’t you imitate your friends? You pick up their little silly words and phrases. It’s hard to believe though that you’d pick them up from your president. And yet here we are, and people are doing just that.

I like to call it Cowboy Talk. It’s pretty easy to do. You just pretend you are a real cowboy. And you use euphemisms that would make sense to a cowboy. So you’ll say, “We’re going to smoke ’em out of their holes.” “Wanted: Dead or Alive” And the like. But it doesn’t just have to be something rural and 1800’s minded. No, it can be a certain phrase.

“Make no mistake”, this phrase is sweeping the nation. I hear it everywhere! The girl who sits next to me just used it. I read a sports column today and the writer threw it out. It’s getting to the point where it’s being twisted beyond recognition. Like in highschool where you call your teacher a fascist b/c they gave you a pop quiz. Or when people in CCD got upset b/c someone called Jesus a communist.

The problem is people are employing the phrase in situations where no one would ever make a mistake. Maybe I too will champion this phrase into oblvion:

–Make no mistake, I’m going to order pepperoni on my pizza!
–Make no mistake, I’m going to take a nap when I’m tired!
–Make no mistake, I’m going to watch Lost tonight!
–Make no mistake, that was a pretty impressive bowel movement!

If Shakespeare wrote Julius Caesar today, it would read, “Make no mistake, Brutus is an honorable man.” Wait, that would make sense. I’m using the rhetorical technique in the correct way. I made a mistake!