By SOPHIE BUSHWICK, York Suburban Senior High School
Languages always have, and always will, evolve.
The meanings of some words may change, as when “gay� went from meaning happy to describing homosexuality. Other phrases, like “I’m not gonna lie,� may suddenly work their way into almost every sentence, only to — with luck — fall out of favor just as quickly.
We may like or hate these linguistic changes, but ultimately, we have little power to delete them from our friends’ conversations. This is a pity, because I truly loathe the phrase “my bad.�
When did “sorry� become so difficult to say? No amount of open-mindedness about the natural growth of English could ever make “my bad� grammatically correct. But this isn’t my biggest beef with this new phrase. My problem lies in the way people utter it.
When I apologize to a person for accidentally stumbling into her, playing a sour note on the clarinet or hitting him with a pingpong ball, I adopt a regretful tone to convey my sincerity. I think that the word “sorry,� with its undertones of humility, serves the same purpose. But when most people say “my bad,� they do so in a tone of voice that indicates that they don’t really care. “My bad,� a girl said as she knocked into me in the hall, already laughing at a friend’s joke.
I suppose that I don’t really hate “my bad.� What I hate is the fact that it really means, “I don’t care.� Perhaps daily rudeness comes with attending high school. But that doesn’t mean that I have to like it. And if that offends you — well, my bad.
I AGREE.
People should respect language.