Through the years — through these many, many years — beginning in my early teen years, I have had a fascination with, a love for, if you will, words.

That’s right. Words.

I love words just by themselves. And I love them when they are put together with skill. Whether it be the written or spoken word, when the author or speaker uses words, and the meanings they convey, in powerful, or poignant, or eloquent fashion — or some amalgam of all of these uses — I really love it. For me, it can be food for thought, or, dare I say it, food for the soul.

Perhaps this is why the tech-trend of truncated words, phrases, sentences, growing more prevalent every day, which seems to be the currency of the young, concerns me.

Will we have a generation of tech savvy people who can’t or won’t use our language in all of its wonderful ways? Do these thumbs-users even read, as in books, our language used in so many diverse and enlightening ways? Or is social media the extent of their language experience?

They don’t/can’t write in cursive, many words are abbreviated, and a fully developed sentence doesn’t seem to lie within their purview.

What, pray tell, inspires them, as it did each generation in our country’s journey, when we needed hope, and confidence, and inspiration, and comfort, and courage, to light our paths?

What, indeed.

Well, it’s just the way of things today. The paradigm has changed. The written and spoken word has been relegated to a lower form of communication.

Sad, but true.

Maybe I overstate the situation. Would that this was the case, but I fear I’m probably right.

So it goes.

APROPOS — “ I am always sorry when any language is lost, because languages are the pedigree of nations.” — Samuel Johnson, 1773.