You've Been Verbed

Words—I love them. I love learning the meaning of words I’ve never heard before. There are some words that I like simply because they are fun to say: cathartic; plethora; twitterpated; agrestic; plinth; smarmy. (I’m giggling as I say them- c’mon, you know you want to) It’s fun; It’s power; It’s a little twisted. My youngest son is this way about words. When he was growing up, he’d hear a new word and ask me what it meant. Invariably he would work this newly obtained piece of wisdom into conversation multiple times that very day. Sometimes his use was more accurate than others, but the practice has given him an extraordinary vocabulary.

My most recent word obsession: neologism. Hmmm… off I go to Wikipedia. A neologism is “a newly coined term, word or phrase, that may be in the process of entering common use, but has not yet been accepted into mainstream language.” Good God in heaven there is actually a word whose definition is a word?! I love my life!!

This is the point where you’re thinking I don’t have enough to do. That would be an erroneous perception (that one may make the fun-to-say-list). I have plennntttyyy to do. However, instead of obsessing about things like my 403b account in my free time, I think about words. Okay, words, and shoes—but that’s another blog entirely…

Consider this- my dad passed a few years ago, and would have been 93 years old this year. If I said to my dad, “Dad, I met this guy and we’ve been texting. I googled him right after we met and we’ve been hanging out. He’s already friended me, but after following his tweets I think I’m going to unfollow him. He says he hearts me but I think I just nothing him. Maybe I should stick to expiration dating?”

Here is what my nonagenarian (look it up!) parent would hear: I met a nice young fellow and we read the newspaper print together. I did something very inappropriate with him on the first date and our clothing is too tight. He wants to be my friend, but after stalking him while he makes bird noises, I think I will stop stalking him. He has some heart problems but I don’t. Maybe I should stick to dating men who are about to die?

Poor Dad. He’d be thoroughly confused. Truth be told, oftentimes so am I. There are a bevy of words that I have to ask my own kids to translate. Who’d have guessed that “going ham” had nothing to do with the meat I serve for Easter brunch every year? I thought that “hooking up” was a plan to pull the camper behind the truck. And what the heck is “dubstep??”

Contrary to the opinions of my offspring, I like to believe I’m pretty progressive in my thinking. In fact, I think I’ll do a little retail therapy before I pound some natties, facebook stalk my friends and promote my tanorexia.

Ah—who am I kidding? I just want my idiosyncratic self to find another neologism.  Life is good.