Month: November 2006

I’ve been doing work around a personal aversion to the phrase “have to”. When I hear it, and especially when said to me, I always react “I don’t have to do anything”.

I don’t think anyone “has to” do anything.

I say let’s use more descriptive “need to”, “should”, “obligated”, “would like to”. All of which are different then “have to”.

So why? Well, I believe this term is used and beaten with a stick. It’s a dead horse, so I suggest, let’s all get off.

“Have to” came around at the end of the 16th century, which is the end of the Renaissance. Is it a coincidence that for a time when everyone is running around the countryside asking “why”, that people came up with “because you have to”? They wanted a way to shut them up.

It’s used as a blanket statement for people who don’t know, or don’t want to know. It’s used for people who want compliance.

Here is an example:

Person 1: “You have to [insert task here]”

Person 2: “Why?”

Person 1: “Because, you have to.”

Wrote an interesting little piece in creative class the other day. It was a moment when you hear the characters voice crisply, and it’s more dictation. Especially this, which was an odd mix of slang. Wasn’t sure what I was writing until I looked it over again.

The telephone rang. I looked at the call display to see who it was

“Oh – My – God! Like, you totally won’t believe!”

I saw the number, I saw the name, and yet I sill picked up the phone. Why?

“So Dave went to Lisa’s and totally found her tets up and snoggin Janet. She was like shocked. And he was like, shocked!”

Why? You’d think after a lifetime of listing to your little sister dish all the latest gossip, the voice wouldn’t sound like nails on a chalkboard.

“He asked if he could play too, but she just slammed palm on his specs. I mean, It ain’t pussy foot it they tri’d. But, you need a reboot on her thoughts. I mean seriously – with out her monkey toy it ain’t banana cream; it’s just pie.”

Half the time I had no clue. Where does she get these terms?

“Turns out she’s been fakin his grades for a semester. He ain’t her localhost and she’s changed providers! Hell she’s gone from packet to ping! We are talkin, like some serious backbone overhaul.”

What did she say?

“So, like, he went from hotmail to gmail, re-proped his DNS and is looking for a new server.”

With that she hung up the phone. What did she say?