It’s happened very quickly, in the last couple of years it seems that the way that we speak has changed more than in the last four or five decades.
It’s like an epidemic has taken hold affecting everyone between the ages of twenty and forty, and what’s more I’m sure people do it to annoy me specifically. Is it a fashion thing? It must be, it’s not like we’ve started using the word ‘get’ and ‘grab’ instead of ‘have’ just to make our request a little clearer. Also, people of my generation didn’t talk like that when we we’re at school, so it is, fashion.
I wouldn’t mind so much if it was teenagers that adopted this slang and carried it on into adult life, which would sort of make sense. But hearing adults using these teenage Americanisms sounds a little like being down with the kids. And there’s only one thing worse than an adult who thinks he’s down with the kids, that’s an adult that actually is down with the kids.
I almost want to get a job in Pret A Manger so that I can correct those thirty something’s who pretend to be too busy to ask me for a coffee properly.
“No, you can’t get a coffee, I can get one for you and you can have it.”
“No, you can’t grab a receipt, you can ask me for one and I’ll give it to you.”
The whole ‘Can I get a coffee’ culture just reminds me of Radio One and that ‘Too cool for school’ slurred middle England accent. It’s everywhere from T4 to Sarah Cox, which is fine provided you’re younger than twenty. Otherwise, it’s simply time to grow up.