At the risk of bringing upon myself the wrath of the
list, I have to express my complete dismay at reading
posts from a college instructor of physics who writes
like one of my high school students. Is it because I'm
a grouchy hexagenarian that I find the phrases "like",
"totally", and "like, totally" painful?
A fascinating article by David W. Orr appeared in
the Winter, 2000 - 2001 issue of the _American Educator_.
The author claims that, over the past 50 years, the working
vocabulary of the average 14-year old has declined from 25,000
words to 10,000 words. The author's position is as vocabulary
is reduced, the ability to think - to form ideas - is also reduced.
"Because we cannot think clearly about what we cannot say
clearly, the first casualty of linguistic incoherence is our ability
to think well about many things."