A person who is frivolous is described as superficial.
From the Latin superficialis , the adjective superficial refers to that which is linked to the surface . The superficial is something that is found in the outer layer of a thing, without advancing in depth.
For example: “The wounds are only superficial and do not involve any organ,” “The earthquake caused superficial damage but did not affect the building structure ,” “The car has several superficial marks although its operation is impeccable.”
Lack of foundation and frivolity
Superficial is also something that lacks firmness or foundation : “The journalistic investigation is superficial and does not delve into the causes of the problem,” “The editor told me that it is a superficial book and that it does not deserve to be published,” “I have never seen a movie. ” that dealt with the subject of war in such a superficial way."
This adjective can be said about a person, which is an offense or, at least, a negative criticism. A superficial subject is frivolous and is only interested in appearances. He does not judge things by their essence, but by their appearance: “My girlfriend is a bit superficial: she spends half the day reading fashion magazines and she doesn't even know the president's name,” “The Hollywood star once again showed herself as a superficial person to confess that he was not aware of the problems suffered by the Haitian people after the earthquake.”
Superficial use of language
Linguistic poverty is an evil that has affected countless countries and continues to do so, creating young people who in many cases are not able to write their own names and surnames correctly . When the Internet was born, teachers argued that chat and emails were responsible for the growing wave of spelling mistakes and grammatical errors. With the rage of mobile phones, text messages (or SMS) shared the blame, given the "need" to shorten sentences as much as possible to save money.
However, not all Internet and mobile phone users have seen our spelling and grammatical knowledge fade away, which makes it somewhat unfair to point the finger at technology and accuse it of being " anti -educational ". Isn't it thanks to her that knowledge has become much more accessible? Don't we owe computer networks the possibility of carrying out all types of distance courses with real-time tutoring and contact with students from all over the world?
The idea of surface tension is used in the field of physics.
The global problem
Spanish-speaking people may think that this is something of ours, that it will increase the percentage of secularism in Spain and of erroneous verbal conjugations in Latin America. But not. It happens in France, where adolescents communicate through interjections and monosyllables , in Japan, where it is increasingly difficult to instill in their young people the importance of writing , and in many other countries, with different forms, but with the same consequence. : A rich and many-year-old legacy, which offers us millions of possibilities, is being wasted to simply remain with the surface, with the basic elements and, as if this were not terrible enough, they are misused.
Every day it becomes more true that those who study a foreign language observe and respect it more than many natives. The biggest problem is that human beings tend to patch up their mistakes , which is much more comfortable than correcting them from the root ; This translates into simplifying the linguistic rules when there are not so many people left to comply with them, making the wrong right . The question is how far can we go in this process? Will future generations be able to understand classical literature or even that of our times?
surface tension
It is interesting to note, finally, that the concept of superficial also appears in the field of physics .
Specifically, surface tension is an action developed by molecular forces, which causes the upper layer of a liquid to tend to hold the volume in the smallest possible surface area.