I was going to be an English major a long time ago. I was intrigued with the English language and how ridiculous and fun it could be.
The English language has around a million words already, yet we add about 1000 new words every year. I think we’re just too lazy to look up the word we need or to actually take the time to understand the meaning of the words we’re using.
I met a lady on trail who was studying to be a linguist. She scolded me for calling lazy those who don’t make the effort to properly pronounce words. Like: mountain. Yes, there is an ‘n’ and a ‘t’ in that word and they are not silent.
My pronunciations are often imperfect, but I’ll not pretend that my invented words are equally correct. And our education system encourages this; they’ll call “exploration” or “open mindedness”. And that’s another example of language abuse. It’s this lack of discipline, this wide open acceptance of nonsense, and the abandonment of standards that has formed my opinion about institutes of higher education. Go to a trade school, at least you’ll graduate with a useful skill.
And then there’s backpacking. What are you talking about?
I’ve watched some videos from some folks in Europe. They have a term they use for putting on a backpack, walking into places almost completely void of civilization, where you might not see another human for days. In that backpack they carry a shelter and bedding. They also carry their food, kitchen supplies, and a stove that they will use to prepare their meals. And they might stay out there for days among wild animals, maybe in the rain, completely at the mercy of whatever nature gives them. They call this “Wild Camping”.
Of course, I’m describing what us Americans simply call “backpacking”. But to the rest of the world backpacking is something quite different. It’s more like low-cost, independent travel for those seeking an authentic cultural immersion in new places outside of tourist hot spots – not in wild places. With these backpacking trips, there is normally much flexibility and spontaneity. Backpackers will stay in hostels or guesthouses, mostly just for the night before moving on to the next destination. They carry only what they need in their backpack; it’s a minimalist form of tourism.
Honestly, I prefer the term “wild camping” because it more accurately describes what we do when we’re walking on a trail and camping in the wilderness.
Americans like to be special, don’t we? Doesn’t everyone? I know this, because I’m guilty.
American football, for instance, is a sport where only a couple players on the entire team ever put their foot on a ball. What is football to the rest of the world is what American’s call soccer. But to be fair, the term soccer originated in England as slang to distinguish association football from rugby football. American’s simply adopted what was English slang... and now, somehow, we’re the odd ones. It’s you, Oxford, you did this. Another case of higher education causing a muck.
Some other odd things we say:
We probably don’t work at a cemetery if we are working the graveyard shift.
We like to be redundant by saying chai tea. Chai is tea. “Tea tea,” stop saying that.
And we like things out of order with our calendar dates. We use, “Month-Day-Year.” Can we just order this properly? Day-Month-Year? Please, stop antagonizing people with OCD.
We do, however, have more universal agreement on the term “hike”, where it is more globally understood as walking outdoors through a natural setting, as opposed to walking in an urban setting.
Although, not surprisingly, I recently saw an attempt to mess this up too. I heard someone say they did an “urban hike.” Can we just stop, please? Words don’t need to be redefined. Unless, of course, you need to be special.
Some will do this ridiculous exercise under the banner of being progressive, like they are somehow compelled to move things along in what they have convinced themselves is a natural and positive direction. It’s neither. Leave it alone. Find some other purpose for your life.
In any case, I love wild camping.