Nits, Picks, and Language

In a most unfortunate turn of events for the Twinkies (small, twin-like creatures who inhabit my house), their return to school after the winter holiday break placed them in the midst of an outbreak of head lice. Yes, indeed. And I can hear your collective "Ick!", even feel your shudders of disgust.

Being away at the time of the outbreak, I only returned home a few days later to help in the cycle of laundry, vacuuming, and picking of nits out of hair. Several things struck me about the process of dealing with this particular personal pest.

First of all, the solution is a comprehensive and diligent war involving chemical and conventional weapons: pesticide laden shampoo, laundry detergent, disinfectants, vacuums, combs, and fingers.

To defeat the initial onslaught of these insect invaders is relatively simple; the shampoo kills off the first wave. The ticking time bomb of hidden nits is the real threat. These require hours of attention to detail and diligence to remove. Day after day, the removal and mitigation of future occurrences goes on.

And, it was in the midst of one long session of nit removal that it struck me... Lice, for thousands of years, were a constant companion for humans. Our language is rife with vocabulary and phrases derived directly from the campaign to control these critters: nit pick, nitty gritty, fine-toothed comb, and so on.

The realization left me exceedingly thankful for the help of modern chemistry and appliances. It also got me to wondering... A hundred years from now, what terms will be taken for granted by our descendants as a result of our current attentions.

Not that cruising the web or playing video games or goofing with iPhone apps is the same as dealing with lice, but with all the hours each day we have for these things could they be impregnating our language with new terms of future mystery? I'll think about it as I surf the web on my smartphone...