Language Evolution and Security Concerns: What Time Is It in America?

Have you ever considered how your relationship with time has evolved? From my treasured Effie watch with its distinctive white alligator band to questioning the fitness value of step-counting on Apple Watches, this episode examines our changing connections to timekeeping in the digital age.

We dive into the fascinating world of language evolution as the Cambridge Dictionary adds a staggering 6,000 new words to its database. Among them are controversial Gen Z slang terms like "skibidi" – a nonsense word from viral YouTube animations that can variously mean "cool," "bad," or absolutely nothing at all. The heated debate surrounding these additions reveals deeper tensions between linguistic traditionalists and those embracing internet-driven language evolution. As one critic laments, "English is no longer a language, it's a TikTok comment section."

The episode takes a more serious turn examining a disturbing case of political threats. Natalie Rose Jones, 50, was arrested after making explicit threats against President Trump on social media and subsequently traveling to Washington DC with stated intentions to harm him. This alarming incident highlights growing concerns about violent rhetoric in our political discourse and the serious legal consequences that follow such threats. DC U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro emphasized these charges would be met with "swift and unwavering prosecution," reminding us of the real-world implications of online behavior.

What do these seemingly disparate topics tell us about our rapidly changing society? Subscribe, share your thoughts, and join the conversation about how we navigate these cultural shifts while maintaining necessary social boundaries.

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Liberty Line each week on Sunday, look for topics on my X file @americanistblog and submit your 1-3 audio opinions to anamericanistblog@gmail.com and you'll be featured on the podcast. 

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Chapters

• 0:29 Question: What's on Your Wrist?
• 2:02 6,000 New Dictionary Words
• 6:57 Woman Arrested for Threatening Trump
• 11:34 Closing Thoughts

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:15

Hey, good morning. We are going to get right to the question of the day in the beginning of the episode today. My question is what do you wear on your wrist as far as timekeeping? Do you wear a watch? Most people don't wear watches anymore because they have their phone with them, which tells them it's the time I like to wear a watch. This morning I forgot to wear my watch. I hate it.

Speaker 1: 0:37

I love my little watch. I have an Effie watch. I bought it for myself years and years and years ago when I worked retail and I love it. I had to go get a battery put in it recently. I didn't wear it for a long time, I just had it put away in my jewelry box. But it has like a white alligator leather band and then it's a big square face. It has Roman numerals on it for the numbers. I just love that watch and I forgot to wear it today and I'm kind of bummed out.

Speaker 1: 1:07

I used to wear an Apple Watch but I only wore the Apple Watch for when I exercised and I don't even need it. I don't need it anymore when I exercise, I just don't. I want to say something probably controversial People who wear the Apple Watches to count their steps to make sure they get 10,000 steps in a day. I think that's bogus. I mean, good for you that you're trying to get steps in, but if you're looking to lose weight and do more, you're going to have to do more than 10,000 steps. Now I'm sure that's good for people who can't exercise or who have limited abilities to exercise or whatever. Then that's good. At least they're doing something getting the blood flow right. Okay, I'm moving on. I'm sorry I said right after that. I hate when people do that. We are moving on.

Speaker 1: 2:04

I only have two stories today because it's getting more difficult to find anything worth talking about because the main stories you're going to hear all day long all over the mainstream media. I try to bring you things that maybe they don't talk about, but I've noticed lately that they do talk about stuff that I talk about and I'm sure that's just obviously coincidental. All right, the first thing I thought was kind of fun would be this Cambridge dictionary ripped for adding nonsense slang term, scabiddy, to its database. English is no longer a language. It's so funny. I picked this out and then, like 30 minutes later, they were talking about it on Fox News this morning. But whatever Gen Z and Gen Alpha slang terms scabiddy I've never heard of this word skibidi and tradwife I know what tradwife is and delulu I don't know what delulu is. Is that like laboo-boo or whatever that toy is? I don't know. We're going to find out.

Speaker 1: 3:09

Maybe we're going to find out if this article will tell us Are among the 6,000 new words? 6,000 new words y'all. How did we come up with 6,000 new words to put in a dictionary? Also, do people use dictionaries anymore? I'm sure they use them online. I use them all the time, for when I'm writing I have to look up stuff all the time to make sure I'm using it correctly. So 6,000 new words that is insane. I would like to see the whole list that have been added to the world's largest online dictionary. Okay, online. I wonder if they even make dictionaries anymore. Do they print them anymore? Probably All right.

Speaker 1: 3:51

Skibidi, a nonsense word featured in a viral animated YouTube series, can mean cool or bad or be used with no real meaning as a joke. All right, so we have scabiddy. Three, um, three. Oh, what do they used to call those things? Three sounds, what did they call them when you would sound it out? Oh, okay, I forget, I'm forgetting my English lessons or grammar lessons, or whatever you call them.

Speaker 1: 4:19

Scabiddy, instead of saying cool or bad. Instead of saying cool or bad. It's so dumb and it comes from a YouTube video, animated video. It has a picture of this YouTube. It has a screenshot and it's quite terrifying. Okay, here I'm going to describe it, the picture it looks like it's in a nasty bathroom With the toilet with the lid up, with the seat up, and there's an animated head popping out of the toilet basin. That looks really deranged. He's smiling like the Joker, with big, gigantic horse teeth, big round eyes and staring at you. He looks like he's been living in a cave in Pakistan, somewhere, afghanistan. Yeah, no, no, I don't know. Internet culture is changing the English language and the effect is fascinating to observe and capture in the dictionary. No, it's not fascinating.

Speaker 1: 5:21

Colin McIntosh, lexical program manager at Cambridge Dictionary, said in a statement it's not every day you get to see words like scabiddy and delulu make their way into the Cambridge Dictionary. Well, that's because you're putting them in there. We only add words where we think they'll have staying power. No, these words will not have staying power at all. You're dumb. I could do your job better, in fact, probably not even add any new words for a long time. What does Delulu mean? Is another popular slang term added to the dictionary this year. So what does it mean? Congratulate? What does it mean? Does it tell us? I don't know what it means. I'll have to go look it up later. Congratulations. English is no longer a language, it's a TikTok comment section.

Speaker 1: 6:09

One grumpy ex-user wrote I'm usually fine with language evolving and changing and the dictionary keeping up, but do not add this gibberish word scabitty, to the dictionary. That's what another user said. This is the reason why most of humanity is delusional. Oh, maybe it means delusional, okay, delusional means delusional, delusional, okay. So it has four. All right, whatever. All right, you can go finish reading that. I am not going to finish that. You can go finish that.

Speaker 1: 6:42

This next story, though. This is amazing, I think. On Pat Gray they talked about another person. I don't know if this is the same person or not. I don't think so because I think the person on Pat Gray they were talking about yesterday was a man who how do I say this without? I'm just, I'm just reading stories, okay, and retelling stories about this guy who was threatening the president and they let him go. So here's another one, but this is a woman this time. Y'all this is crazy, deranged woman arrested after threatening to sacrificially kill President Trump in unhinged social media posts. So I think they let her go. I don't think she's arrested, but I well, let's read it. Let's read it, shall we? It was. I didn't really get an ending to this story when I read it the first time. Let's see if we can make sense of it now.

Speaker 1: 7:35

A deranged woman was hit with federal charges Monday after threatening to kill President Trump in a disturbing social media post and subsequent interview with the Secret Service. Natalie Rose Jones, who is 50 years old, was arrested on Saturday after she made the threats on Facebook and Instagram and then traveled from New York to Washington DC with the goal of having Trump eliminated if the opportunity presented itself. Dc US Attorney Jeanine Pirro said on Monday I am willing to sacrificially kill the POTUS by disemboweling him and cuffing and cutting out his trachea, with Liz Cheney and all the affirmation present. Jones allegedly wrote in an August 6th Facebook post directed at the FBI, according to the prosecutors, and they have a picture of this woman standing outside the gates of the White House. This woman is crazy. And here's her. This is what she posted on social media. It's long. Oh my gosh, it's long and I don't know if I can even see it to read it. She did tag the FBI. She said oh, here's her, here's her. You want me to read it? Okay, I'm going to read it as long, so forgive me. Fbi, federal Bureau of Investigation. Okay, so forgive me. Fbi, federal Bureau of Investigation. Okay, let's say you have an elected official. Oh my gosh, okay, I can't. I can't read it. You can go read it. It's too small print, I can't read it and it's too long.

Speaker 1: 9:14

Jones later urged Defense Secretary Pete Hexeth in August the 14th, the Facebook post, to please arrange the arrest and removal ceremony of POTUS Trump as a terrorist on the American people from 10 to 2 pm at the White House on Saturday, august 16th. Okay, the Secret Service, which had been aware of the woman's social media activity since August 2nd, arranged to interview Jones the day after her message, for Hexeth Jones told the Secret Service during a voluntary August 15th interview that if she had the chance, she would carry out her mission of killing the president at the compound with a bladed object. The woman told agents that she sought to avenge all the lives lost during the COVID-19 pandemic and also referred to Trump as a terrorist and a Nazi. Jones was arrested the following day after participating in a protest near the White House. The Secret Service interviewed Jones after the march and she admitted to making threats against Trump. Jones, however, denied having any present desire to harm the commander-in-chief. According to the DCU, I'm sure she didn't after her fat ass was arrested. I'm sure she didn't. Threatening the life of a president is one of the most serious crimes and one that will be met with swift and unwavering prosecution, pirro said in a statement. Make no mistake, justice will be served, she said.

Speaker 1: 10:47

Jones, who is from Lafayette, indiana, was charged in the US District Court for Washington DC with threatening to take the life of, kidnap and inflict bodily harm upon the president of the united states and transmitting in interstate commerce communications containing threats to kidnap any person or any. Okay, the white house did not immediately respond to so I get. I don't know if she's still arrested or not. I don't know she's being charged. Uh, hopefully. All right. That's all I've got today. Y'all, that's it. Okay. Look, I went over my 10 minutes, so I thought I wasn't going to be able to fill 10 minutes with just two stories. But there you have it All right, gotta go. Thanks for listening. Love y'all. Bye.