The recent battle between Apple and the US Department of Justice over an encrypted iPhone was rendered moot when the DOJ figured out how to get into the device without the company’s help. Apple’s argument in favor of privacy would appeal to me more if  I could find a shred of evidence that privacy has not already become a faint, nostalgic glimmer of the past, in the sort of story that old people begin with the phrase “in my day.”

I say this as a frequent customer of the New York City Transit Authority. Consider this incident. Setting: a crowded M15 bus. Characters: Young Mother (YM) with a toddler and an infant, seated in the back. Young Guy (YG) with friends, standing near the front. The dialogue goes like this:

YG: Hey! I haven’t seen you in ages!

YM: I got fired!

YG: You got fired?

YM: Totally.

Keep in mind that this conversation spanned the length of a double bus — the kind of vehicle that bends in the middle to make turns easier. So in effect, the participants were half a block apart. It’s not that getting fired is necessarily — or ever — something to hide. In my day, though, we gave out this information privately, not as a public service announcement. (See what I mean about “in my day”?)

But this isn’t a post about privacy, primarily. Instead it’s about the word “totally.” If YM was “totally fired,” does that mean someone can be “partially fired,” as in “you have to work on Mondays and Wednesdays. You are fired on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays”? Somehow that scenario doesn’t seem to fit the definition of “fired.”  Instead, “totally” in this context seems to mean “really,” a way to indicate that you meant what you just said. That such an affirmation is necessary is a sad commentary on the status of truth nowadays. (“Nowadays,” but the way, is another favorite word in senior circles.)

My advice: Hit the mute button in your own mouth a little more often, especially in mass transit situations. Then the privacy issue won’t be moot. Not totally, anyway.