Many things have made me grumpity, from lack of sleep, to people whining on the internet, to a bird building a nest and laying eggs in my work boots, and so I have decided to share my grumpitiness with you, precious ones, in the form of a list of words that get my dander up. My justifications for disliking these words are entirely arbitrary and somewhat spiteful, so I'm not trying to make a political statement with my list. It's just a grumpity, spiteful list. I thoroughly expect you to ignore it and persist in abusing the English language in your own special ways.
Words That I Hate and Make Me Feel Grumpity and Spiteful
- Webinar. If I get an email with the word webinar in it, I will delete it automatically. I cannot control this reaction. It's like swatting a fly.
- Reference (used as a verb). There are two perfectly good verbs for what you need: refer (which is apparently really difficult to use as it requires a preposition) and allude. Try them out. Please.
- Basic (when used as an insult to describe someone's clothes or style). When you use this word, you make me feel old and grumpity because no matter how many times I look it up in the urban dictionary, I still can't figure out what you mean.
- Matchy. Or worse yet, matchy-matchy. Look, if the clothes do not actually clash with one another, then they're fine. I cannot deal with the idea that they must neither clash nor match; that's obviously insane.
- Da real mvp. Because I know damned well that you're not even a baseball fan. Cut it out.
- Talk to meaning "have sex with." Okay, what is wrong with you all? Talking to people is good. You're supposed to talk to people. It's how you form a community. When you start freaking out because your boyfriend talked to another girl (or boy), I start wondering what kind of creepy relationship you're expecting. And that makes me confused and grumpity. Let's find another euphemism--how about scrump? "I can't believe my girlfriend scrumped another guy!" is a much more powerful and effective sentence, don't you agree? Good. I'm glad we had this little talk.
- Target pronounced "tar-jhay." I don't believe I need to explain this one. It's like calling U.P.S. "ups." If you are in the habit of doing either of these things, I hope that squirrels bite off all of your fingernails.
- Breasteses. You appear to have some extra s's; lend them to me for Words with Friends, and I won't have my minions strangle you in your sleep.
- Butthurt. I think this is intended to dismiss the fact that someone has actually had his feelings hurt. Or that he actually has feelings. Either way, it's sexist, homophobic, and contains too many t's.
- Mouthfeel. I don't know, and I don't want to know.
Words That Make My Friends, Aquaintences and Random Readers
of this Blog Grumpity
I am adding this section, beloved readers, because you all have begun to post, email and shout other objectionable words at me, and, well, I agree with every single one of them. So here are your grumpity-making words, plus my spiteful comments upon them.
- Cray-cray. My brilliant and insightful friend Michelle protests this word, asking, "What is the infantile fascination with reduplication lately?" I do not know the answer to that, Michelle, but I share your dismay.
- Mouthgasm. Also suggested by that Michelle. Please imagine me covering my eyes and turning away in terror.
- Relatable. Submitted by my brand new friend and fellow Whovian, Cate. Obviously, everything in the universe relates to everything else, rendering this word nonsense on both a macroscopic and a subatomic level.
- Retarded, et al. My friend and former student Brian suggests that retarded, gay, bipolar, and other words of that ilk make him cringe, as, indeed, they do all civilized people who prefer not to denigrate entire groups of people to get a laugh or use outmoded semi-scientific language to describe other human beings. Now, of course, that Brian does not mean that one ought not say, "By the way, I am gay" or "feeding the cat beer retarded his growth," so do not inundate me with protests of that nature. Just stop using words that make you sound like an asshat, and we won't conclude that you're an asshat--deal?
- Impact(ful). My friend Brandi claims that the abuse of impact makes her grumpity. Meteorites have an impact, and wisdom teeth become impacted. Pretty much everything else affects something, has an effect, or is affected by something. I will admit that impact does not make me particularly grumpity, but the word impactful makes me bleed from eyes and ears alike.
- Takeaway. Beloved Amelia submits takeaway which should only be used when talking about buying food and eating it elsewhere or when referring to a sporting play. This means that my takeaway from a boring seminar is usually a bad cup of coffee, not whatever appeared on a badly conceived powerpoint slide.
- Onboarding. Liz suggests this horror of a word which, as Amelia suggests, sounds like a new sort of torture, probably introduced by a Certain Airline Company which is definitely not called Alpha or Beta.
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