a soap box plea...

Recently, and by recently I mean in the last 5 years or so, a few new adjectives - or old adjectives with new meanings - have been in circulation and I loathe them: gay, retarded, and effing. I thought I would escape the ill-use of these words during my maternity leave, what with being away from the 14-year-olds in my life, but I am sad to say I have not escaped them. I heard all three of them today at the grocery store and actually took the time to tell the store manager how inappropriate and insulting it is for his employees to be speaking this way in the work place. If you use these words inappropriately, you use gay and retarded to describe something as lame or unfair or inadequate and use effing in place the much-too-vulgar-to-say-here curse word. If you are an adult saying these words, please stop. You should know better. If you are a young adult saying these words, please stop. It makes you sound ignorant, not hip.