Maybe I am getting old; I still have fond memories of Woodstock.

For the millennials out there, Woodstock took place on a farm in upstate New York. People came from everywhere, pitched tents wherever they wanted to, went to the bathroom wherever they wanted to, didn’t bathe for days, and did whatever drugs they wanted to with no consequences. Today that is known as downtown San Francisco.

It seems Americans are getting dumber but richer. If you can work a check-out scanner at Walmart, you will be made a regional manager.

One way to measure our decline is by the way we are butchering the English language.

Millennial women are leading the way, changing our language to a sing-song, nasal, whiny, Kardashian-like, Valley Girl tone, and it is driving us older folks nuts. You know the annoying trend of speaking that sounds as if every sentence ends as if it is a question? “I am like literally, like fam-ished…?” This is commonly known as “uptalking.”

Although millennials are fond of the construction, one should not say “like” and then “literally.” They mean opposite things. “Literally” is a precise word; “like” is not very precise. Used together they are stupidly imprecise. Please stop.

This is the same group of vapid people who use the word “amazing” for everything, and the word “literally” incorrectly. “Amazing” describes seeing your child being born, not that sandwich you had for lunch at Panera Bread. If everything is “amazing,” then nothing is.

When you try to emphasize a boring story, using “literally” does not help. It is a crutch word. Maybe if you told an interesting story on occasion, you would not have to use filler expressions such as “literally,” “OMG,” “like” and “amazing.”

To use the word “literally,” there has to be a figurative equal. So it cannot “literally” be raining cats and dogs, unless cats and dogs are actually falling from the sky.

There a group called A.W.F.U.L that you can join if you continue to mis-use “literally.” A.W.F.U.L. stands for “American Who Figuratively Use Literally.” News flash: It makes you, and our country, look stupid. Please stop.

Aside from using the word “like” all the time, these same folks have taken to not pronouncing the “Ds” or “Ts” in words such as “Biden” or “Clinton.” Joe Bi-en or Bill Clin-on is not how you say these names. I am not sure where this trend came from — I think up north — but please stop. And while you’re at it, stop truncating words because you are too lazy to pronounce every syllable. We do not “vacay” in the Caribbean, we vacation. Truncating perfectly good words make one look vapid.

Nowadays, when these same young folks order food at, say, McDonald’s, and finally get to the counter, they do not know what they want. They start all their orders with “Can I get a….Big Mac…” Of course you can. It is what they sell. If you could not, you would have a lawsuit. Be ready to order when you are at a restaurant. It’s not a hard decision. You are not buying a Cadillac. You are ordering food.

Time is money, and the folks behind you know what they want. The menu at McDonald’s has not changed in 30 years. Cutting out the four words “Can I get a ...” would save McDonald’s so much time they could get the cost of a Big Mac down to 99 cents. And do not order a salad at a fast food restaurant like McDonald’s. We do not care that you have spin class later.

Millennials seem to be the ones doing this. Thus far, their only discernable contributions to society are the advent of hot, expensive and syrupy craft beers; almond milk; and avocado toast. No wonder parents have to pay $500K in bribes to get their kids into a party school like USC.

I blame all this on our expensive, non-judgmental colleges, which have been dispensing terrible educations for decades. They aim to indoctrinate, not educate.

On the bright side, selfie-absorbed millennials are not doing as much cocaine as my age group did back then. I’d like to think it was discipline, but they do a lot of Molly. They probably don’t do cocaine because snorting coke blocks their view of themselves in the mirror.


Ron Hart’s column appears Wednesdays in The Daily Herald. Hart is an op-ed humorist, author and TV/radio commentator who formerly lived in Columbia. Email Ron@RonaldHart.com or visit www.RonaldHart.com.