Infectious Syntax

Having a roommate is awesome. My roommate and I lived together for 2 years. We shared an apartment as well as a place of employment, interests, and a sense of fun. We visited the same websites, watched the same television shows, and loved the same movies. We could play Lord of the Rings Trivial Pursuit together and never have to look at the answers. We had nicknames for each other and could finish one another's sentences.

Most importantly, we shared the same style of speech. I don't mean merely that we both spoke English, but that we used the same kind words, the same sentence structure, so that it if you were talking to one of us on the phone you wouldn't necessarily know which one was which.

After moving away from one another, “Lindy” and I have continued to speak similarly. Every time we get together (which, sadly, isn’t as often as we would like), there’s at least one moment that we say the same thing at the same time.

I always thought that this similarity was because we were together almost all the time, so our way of speaking just naturally mixed. Things that pleased us got the response, “HOORAY!” or “HUZZAH!” and displeasing things were met with “BOO, FISH.”

But I never really knew that I was evangelizing my speech patterns until an internet friend of mine mentioned to me the other day that she had started saying “YAY FOR [whatever]” as well as typing it. I wonder if Lindy has had any converts of her own.

HOORAY FOR INFECTIOUS SYNTAX!