It is time to hear from Lingo, our minor deity of language.

Here’s how it works. Lingo talks to me, his minor Moses, and I tell you.

Lingo is tired of “legends.” Everyone’s a legend these days. There’s NASCAR legend Junior Johnson, basketball legend Michael Jordan and legendary sci-fi writer Ray Bradbury.

Lingo grumbles that none of them are legends. Legends are fictitious stories passed down as myth. Junior Johnson is a real person, Lingo snarls, and you can ask any of his old moonshine customers if you don’t believe it. Famed or distinguished are Junior and the rest. Not myths.

Lingo went all thundery a couple weeks back when he read in his morning paper that Deep Gap native Doc Watson was both a legend and an icon. Lingo mourned Doc’s passing as much as anyone did, but never thought of him as an icon, which is a funny little picture of a deer or crossing ducks that you put on one of those yellow-diamond street signs.

Clearly, Lingo would never cut it as a Charlotte sportscaster.

Lingo gives up on “like.” He hears it in sentences that go this way: “I was, like, what do you mean you want to see other people, and he was, like, uh, and so I was, like, fine! What-everrrrr.”

Lingo now allows anyone under 25 years of age to spike their sentences liberally with “like.” Anybody older than that needs to act their age.

Lingo notices that people who pepper their speech with “like” don’t stick in a bunch of “you knows.” That’s progress at least.

Watch out for Lingo because he is “literally” grumpy.

Literally means something is absolutely true. Morons beetle about the Earth using it all the time as a word to add meaningless emphasis.

“I was literally rolling on the floor laughing,” the moron will say. When Lingo hears this, Lingo looks for carpet burns. Lingo never sees them because while the moron may have emitted a chuckle, he did it far above the floor boards.

What the moron means is “figuratively.” That word just doesn’t sound as authoritative as “literally,” which isn’t Lingo’s problem.

Lingo reserves harsh penalties for people who are trying to mess with “effort.” That’s a noun and it has been locked down as such in Lingo’s domain.

Some people lately have been trying to click and drag it into the verb column. “We’re efforting a resolution,” they’ll say.

At this Lingo winces, literally. He dispenses a weeklong scratchy throat for offenders, already linguistic legends in their own minds.