Say what?

The other day my son and I were out running errands.  We happened to drive by a place called the "Kwik Kar Wash". 

Son: Mom, I thought "car" was spelled with a "C".
Me: It is.
Son: But on that sign it's spelled with a "K". They spelled it wrong.
Me: I know. They did that on purpose.
Son: (sigh) Doesn't anyone follow the rules anymore?

I feel his pain. Often, I feel like even though I speak English, and almost everyone around me also speaks English, we're not always all speaking the same language. An English professor in college told me once that the English language is a mutt; because it borrows from so many other languages, the rules are confusing and don't always make sense. 

It also doesn't help that I am surrounded by both teenagers and acronyms, and that no one talks to anyone any more. We all text each other.

When I graduated from college, I got a job as a park ranger and was introduced to park ranger English.  For example, when writing incident reports, the phrase "the man walked down to the lake" became "The male individual proceeded south towards the shoreline".  I could feel generations of English teachers silently weeping each time I wrote a sentence in ranger English.  My car became my "privately owned vehicle".  Once,  I went to get the oil changed in my elderly Honda Accord. I asked the mechanic if he could change the oil in my POV, and he replied "I only do cars".

Then my son was diagnosed with autism, so I was introduced to Special Education Speak.  Special Education English is full of acronyms.   For example, when he was young, he was in PPCD- public preschool for children with disabilities. Every year my son has an ARD meeting- Admissions, Review and Dismissal.  In his ARD, we review his IEP- Individualized Education Plan.  We have discussions about his ALS class- Academic Life Skills- and ensure that he has access to his FAPE- free appropriate public education.  Now that he's getting older, we discuss when we'll start working with DARS- Department of Aging and Disability Services. 

I often get the sense that when I'm discussing my son's special education issues with people who are not actually special education professionals or parents, they have no idea what I am talking about.  Actually, sometimes, I have no idea what I'm talking about.  The special education department of our school district has a list of acronyms on their website. It's over three pages long.  The acronyms, unfortunately, have infiltrated my vocabulary.  They've become part of me.  I cannot escape it.

So I have work English, special education English, and now I have teenager English.  A while ago I heard the teenager use the word "bay". To me, a bay is a body of water, but the word was out of context.  I would have asked, but I had a feeling I'd get the rolling eyes, so I looked it up online.

BAE: Before Anyone Else.  Or, significant other, like a boyfriend or girlfriend.

When it comes to written English, don't even get me started on texting.  A few days ago I received this text from the Dad of No, after he'd dropped something off for the teenager:

"Wallet at office once fire dept gives all clear". 

Something a mother at work does not ever want to hear: the words "fire department" used in relation to anything having to do with the school building in which her offspring is currently located.

Fortunately, he followed that up with "Everyone out, all OK".  Whew.  It did take about 10 minutes for my blood pressure to return to normal.

It gets hard to keep all this separate.  I have a feeling one of these days I'll be texting someone that I had to take annual leave (vacation time) so that I could drive my POV to meet my Bae (the Dad of No) to attend my son's ARD so that we can talk with DARS.

And the recipient of that message will probably have no idea what I am talking about.