Slang is killing us (and I don't just mean txtspk)

I'm all for shorthand, slang and abbreviation. I am. One of my Americanised habits, which Ash neither understands nor likes, is the ironic "much?" at the end of a sentence. But there's a time and a place for it. A blog, a letter, a text, a comedy programme: those are just a few acceptable media for slang. A serious, abuse-related petition? No.

As the social networking guru at work, it's my job to check out the online presence of other animal welfare groups. One MySpace page led me, not particularly surprisingly, to a petition against Huntingdon Life Sciences. This oft-attacked venue for animal experimentation, which has frequently been targetted by animal welfare activists thanks to evidence of excessive and unnecessary abuses beyond research, has had many a petition started against it.

What caused my jaw to drop was the petition text:

Huntingdon Life Sciences - a notorious laboratory that conducts the most cruel and awful experiments on animals in the name of science.  They have been exposed repeatedly by undercover video of abusing the animals in their care - not only by carrying out the dreadful experiments but also by mistreating the animals punching them, kicking them - being in a position of power and control over the animals they tend to go really Auschwitz on the poor animals.

Say what?

I didn't quite know how to respond to that, so I sent it to Ashley. His response:

Nice. So they equate animal experimentation (which, while I am not exactly overjoyed about, I see a place for) and the alleged actions of a few cruel individuals with the systematic torture and murder of millions of Jews, Communists, gay people, political prisoners, disabled people etc?

Yes, hon, that's exactly what they did. Now, you might or might not agree that it's a fair comparison. Personally, as a meat-eating, medicine-taking member of society, I find medical experimentation (closely monitored for its effectivess and necessity) acceptable. I don't mind if you disagree with me, that is your right. You've probably noticed the PETA posters with "Holocaust" written on cattle trucks and agree with the sentiment. I think you're wrong, but that's beside the point.

What disgusted me was the offhand way the sentence was thrown out there, as if Auschwitz were a footnote of history and could be relegated to teenspeak descriptiveness. Like, OMG.

If you want to be taken seriously, take yourself seriously. Dust off the emotive vacuous shell and start communicating with reasoned, intelligent arguments; they can be empassioned without being shallow.