Why are “sketch” and “sketchy” all the rage with the kids today? By the way, “sketch” has not entered my vernacular. I do utilize “sketchy” from time to time, but only in truly appropriate contexts. Like that sketchy Korean karoake bar. I doubt most people have truly run across a sketchy character, but they’re more than willing to apply the label to persons who have various descriptive words that could be far more applicable to them — ranging from creepy to stalker-ish to unwholesome. It’s a vague contemporary label that’s being overused. In increasing its versatility to meet the needs of a slang word, its connotations have been reduced. It’s a more general word, and therefore more useless, unless you want to seem hip and with it, and if so, by all means, go ahead and overuse it.

I am unaware of when sketchy was reduced to sketch. I think it’s a fairly recent phenomenon. However, it could merely be a difference in regional dialect and slang. When I visited Santa Barbara, they used “sketch” a lot. Are “sketch” and “sketchy” synonyms? Or has the abbreviation of the word given it new connotations. In reality, I think the time saved by reducing “sketchy” to “sketch” is misleading, or rather, non-existant. When using “sketch,” one feels more necessity to prefix it with filler words, such as “so” or “hella” or “mad”. At least, when applying it to people. To me, it’s easy to say, “He was sketchy,” than “He was sketch.” However, I have a feeling that it’s only me who has this notion. I think I’m just trying to compensate for the loss of syllables on my own.

I wonder if we’ve taken our shortening of words to an extreme. Like “delish” and “delicious”. That’s another topic for another day. For today, I’ll be satisfied with my ruminations on “sketch” and “sketchy”.