SUNDAY THOUGHTS #7: Overusing Useful Words

It's actually literally seriously amazing, but maybe toxic.

Early disclaimer on the post - it was penned from the discomfort of Belfast City Airport during a 3 hour flight delay, to the unrelenting sound of a pneumatic drill, and with my hair in much too tight a slick bun. There are most certainly worse things in the world than this particular trifecta of annoyance, but net effect was a headache and a bad case of grumpy woman syndrome.

Everyone has heard of a swear box, right? Every time you utter an expletive you put a pound into the box to train yourself or your crew out of cursing so fucking much.

Who ever invented it clearly had never heard of lalochezia. But that in your vocabulary pipe and smoke it.

I have a version of a swear box with my nieces and nephews. Not for swearing, but every time they say “literally” or “actually” they owe me 20p. When I tell them a story, and they reply “Literally?” I say, with heavy sarcasm “Well hardly figuratively, you idiot”.

No, I can’t understand why I am not their favourite aunt either.

Amazing

I know a guy. He’s pretty good at what he does, has won prestigious awards and all that shizzle. Works in the arts. He’s sound. He also has no adjectives in his lexicon other than “amazing”. As you may imagine, I’m not shy about pointing this out to him.

Literally

Once upon a time, I worked with some people who were vibrant and brilliant. I learned so much from them - mainly that I’m closer to being a septuagenarian than a GenZ-er - but also that that “literally dead” is the preferred way for those in the know to express amusement. It doesn’t strengthen my case that I am REALLY COOL RIGHT to point out that this is a flawed sentence. The word is also not a substantive answer to most questions: Did you have a good weekend? Are you tired? Are you keen on this latest love interest? Is there something upsetting you? The answer was often “Literally…”, which left me just as bewildered as before.

Toxic

Toxic is the latest one thats grinds. I know its use is warranted, on occasion. But it’s OK to not get along with someone without branding them toxic, y’know? Without blackening their name, and casting aspersions on their character. Maybe, just maybe, the person landing this disparaging remark, is being a bit of a douche too. Toxic is cast around, alleviating the user from any need for introspection, or responsibility for contributing to whatever fuckery has taken place.

(FYI in my humble experience it is a rarity that “people” are toxic. It’s more likely that the “relationship” is - the worst parts of them are abrasive to the worst, or most sensitive, parts of you. But that isn’t the point, today.)

Anyway, there are some 147 000 words in the English dictionary, and another 43 000 are obsolete, which doesn’t seem like a good enough reason not to use them. Plus we can make some up as we go, we don’t have to be pretentious about the thing. We don’t need to use the same handful on repeat and shoved into every sentence. Especially into those sentences where they don’t belong.

My favourite word encountered recently is “cacoethes”. Every Friday, I have cacoethes. Look it up. See what it means. It is perfect, isn’t it? Now we know each other better, on a few levels - how I feel about language, and what I spend my Fridays fighting. And I know you’re the kind of person who looks stuff up.

Shambolic

In that same place I worked with the GenZ-ers, there was one guy who would often say “this place is SHAMBOLIC” (he wasn’t wrong). Then he would look at me knowingly and almost whisper “I love saying that word”, and grin. He knew I knew. So thinking of him, I’m going to open a thread - which means readers can reply directly, essentially - to offer your favourite word, if you have one. I’d LOVE to hear them, because I’m cool like that.

Until Wednesday, when a chat about peoples’ faces, is coming, I think - thought that may change as there are a lot of good summer dresses catching my eye, and I may be compelled to share. We shall see!

Big love

Una

x