I saw an article in the New Yorker yesterday, about how “elite brospeak” has pretty much chewed up the scenery with regard to Americans’ somewhat recent propensity to use great big dramatic words and hip lingo to describe standard, everyday things.
Where has this taken us, lexicologically? If one uses the word “incredible” to describe the new pancakes at IHOP, what will he use to describe witnessing the Aurora Borealis, or the Grand Canyon, or the birth of his child? If making the “my head just exploded” gesture is warranted by comparing two cell phone company prices and discovering one is lower, what gesture will suffice at seeing this?
To me, no episode of Pretty Little Liars can be “amazing.” Now this? This can be amazing.
I admit to delivering the dreaded “awesome” or “outrageous” or “beyond [state of being]” one too many times, perhaps. And some of the phrases I’ve used were fine once upon a time, but are now ruined — kind of like hearing a good song so many times, it’s no longer good (“Happy,” “Stairway to Heaven,” “Gangnam Style,” “Don’t Worry, Be Happy” and others come to mind). They just outlive their usefulness.
But there are some tired old jack mules I can no longer read without twitching a bit on the inside:
- #soblessed
- I love you to the moon and back
- Amazeballs
- Butt-hurt
- My amazing boyfriend
- The struggle is real
- The best ____ ever
- Break (or broke) the Internet
- Fascist and Socialist (written/spoken by people who have no idea what they mean)
- That’s so ironic (don’t get me started)
However, I think it’s not at all hyperbolic to say that the Thriller and I are experiencing mild trepidation about the house going up for sale tomorrow when we have no other place picked out to live. After looking at our 14th house yesterday, we’ve been a) less than enthused about either the house or the land it sits on, b) unable to afford the price, or c) outbid. Still, we’ll continue to strive to just tell folks like it is, as opposed to using temperance drama gestures or diabolically hip brospeak to convey that the pressure wash guy didn’t call us back yet.
That said, I think Donald Trump is hella bootsy, yo?