A Random Post

I have a problem with the current state of vocabulary in our great nation. My age group peers (and those unfortunately following in their footsteps) have inundated our language with the use of a single word so completely, as to devoid a good word of all meaning. Some may site the emergence of a fragmented post-modern worldview and the alienation of the human experience as the source of the predomination of this word, to which, I say “hogwash” (there’s an underused word).

For example, I will use the defiled word below in a variety of contexts that I have heard it used in recently (or at least am sure someone would use them in).

“I had a fun night, but it was so random.”

“Jake is a blast. He’s so random.”

“I randomly ran into him at the store the other day.”

“That couch is so random”

The last example might be the worse. That couch is random? Is it? Does it, as the great Miriam Webster (I know its not a person) once said “lack a definite plan,” or “Have elements with a definite probability of experience.” Or did it, as our good friend, the condensed Oxford English Dictionary states, “happen without conscious decision” or “involve equal chances of each item.” In one case, I do believe the couch did “happen without conscious decision” because it could not choose. It is a couch. However, I think a word like inanimate more adequately meets that criteria.

The use of the word chafes me, not because I really care that there is one less adequate word to choose from, but because the sentiment underlying its usage is that the occasion described by it is so extraordinarily unfathomable, it must have been random. It is not random to see a friend at the store. You both shop, you did not “randomly” run into each other. Simply because you did not plan on running into them, doesn’t make it random. I didn’t plan to write this post today, but I decided to do it. The decision wasn’t random. If you both had a wheel at home with certain destinations such as: store, bar, café, home on it and you both spun your wheel and ended up at the store, it could have been random.

Jake is not random because he does stupid crap. More than likely he plans to do stupid crap because you like it. If he had a bag of possible stupid things to do in his pocket, and randomly selected one, I would agree that Jake is not only random, but also a blast.

Finally, the random night, was probably not random at all. I think anything that takes place after a certain critical point in the evening is considered random because the alcohol in the system did not allow logical decision making. The opposite of logical is not random, it is illogical. There I think is the rub underlying the whole issue.

I really don’t know why this one word chafe me more than others though, it’s so random.