Oh Language, how I despise Thee

I wrote this post a while back about phrases and common sayings that I have grown to hate or that just generally confuse me.

I came up with a few more.

In keeping with the tradition of making 99 percent of blog posts on the internet about things that bother people (I put in a request to rename it the “Bother-net”) here are some choice words and prhases that bother me. I am not excluding myself from being guilty of saying all of these things, because I definitely have.

No one is more bothered BY me THAN me. Always know this.

Please to enjoy:

***************************

Meme

In an internet world where most human experiences are abbreviated, bite-sized and acronymic, I give you the most overused and ridiculous of all the internet buzz words: Meme. First, a few definitions:

--a cultural unit (an idea or value or pattern of behavior) that is passed from one person to another by non-genetic means (as by imitation); "memes are the cultural counterpart of genes"
wordnetweb.princeton.edu/perl/webwn

--The term Internet meme is a phrase used to describe a catchphrase or concept that spreads quickly from person to person via the Internet, much like an esoteric inside joke.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meme_(Internet)

--Meme is a department of Southwest Province in Cameroon. The department covers an area of 3,105 km² and as of 2001 had a total population of 300,318.The capital of the department lies at Kumba.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meme_(department)

I see the phrase “passed from one person to another” and “spreads quickly from person to person”. Looks like we are talking about another of my favorite acronyms, STD, am I right high five? There’s nothing like a good ‘esoteric inside joke’ to make you feel like a complete ass at the internet party, right?

I personally choose to go with definition number three for meme. The next time someone comes at me with an esoteric inside internet joke, I will say “The capital of the department lies at Kumba” repeatedly until that person gets their esoteric hell away from me with a preferably high rate of esoteric speed.

“That being said”

‘That being said, I actually enjoy public fornication.’

‘That being said’ is another phrase that is wholly and completely unnecessary in the English language. We know already that you just said something; we heard you say it! Remember? We were here when you were saying it! You are trying to set a bookmark in history of your previous statement for some reason and no one knows why.

Why not ‘that being eaten’? ‘That being eaten, I will now complete my meal with this milkshake.’ Um, OK? I know it was eaten, I saw you do it already. Just keep on eating, OK? Or don’t?

“FTW”

This was a new one to me, since I’m old and every day I have to chase kids off my damn lawn with my walkin’ stick.

Damn kids. Oops, there goes my back again. Bunions! Other Old People maladies!

‘FTW’ stands for ‘For The Win’ and is used most commonly by people who feel like they need to be winning things that may not even necessarily be contests or that they may be the only participant in. Kind of like the ‘Honorable Mention’ ribbons that all the kids get for the Science Fair when they didn’t actually do any work.

‘Ham Sandwich, FTW!’ was one I saw the other day. Ham Sandwich, for the win! So that person won the sandwich contest, apparently (ham division). Good for that person, right? He’s been training for so long. It was overdue.

‘Condoms, FTW!’ – I agree that this is a well earned victory (unless the condom breaks, then it will change to ‘Condoms, FTB!’ (Condoms, for the Baby!)

‘Chuck Norris, FTW!’ – Chuck would hate anyone who said that to his bearded face. Hey, I just participated in a ‘Chuck Norris Meme!’ See what I did there? This blog is like beautiful rings of colored smoke, just intertwining and merging and forming a smoky rainbow. I’m like a god damned magician with this shit.

“ROFLMAO”

I have said it before, and I will say it again now: If people rolled around on the floor laughing their asses off in real life as much as they do on the internet, then we would all be committed to an asylum.

‘I went for a jog today. It was so humid! ROFLMAO!’

Imagine saying this seemingly un-funny statement to your friend, and then getting all the way down on the floor and rolling around laughing until tears poured down your face and your ass potentially started to detach itself? Your friend would be tempted to shoot you with a tranquilizer dart to make it easier to transport you to the nuthouse.

Don’t make your friends carry around dart guns.

“PWNED”

This one stands for ‘Owned’ meaning ‘Dominated’ or ‘Beaten’ as mistyped by someone who is frantically trying to get the word from keyboard to screen and hits the ‘P’ key instead of the ‘O’ which is common due to their adjacency (adjacentness?).

‘You were just totally pwned by that girl at the bar who dumped a Long Island Iced Tea into your hat!’

Adding the word ‘totally’ in front of it implies the totality of the pwning as opposed to a normal pwning. The pronunciation of this word sounds like you are suppressing a burp (your cheeks puff out and everything).

‘I am letting that cheese steak know that it should be prepared to be pwned by me.’

You see how it works?

***************************

Welcome to the internet. It’s going to be a bumpy ride. I hope there are no aliens watching us trying to figure out our language before they make contact.

It may take a while.

F-Bomb

I think it is time we retired the term “F-Bomb” commonly used when describing the “F-Word” (Franks, as in Franks and Beans, oh, excuse me, “F-bombs” and beans).

“I just ate 17 F-bombs tonight and they all had mustard!”
“Man, I can’t believe there aren’t any F-bombs at this barbeque!”
“Who the Fuck put this F-bomb in the middle of my salad?”

I know you want to temper the impact of this explosive piece of vocabulary, but really it’s just a Hot Dog in the end. I think we can eliminate the “F-bomb” term and give “Frank” its rightful place back in the American dictionary of love and good times.

Don’t even get me started on the “N-word” (Night-sweats).

Methinks

Is there any other word in the English language that annoys me more than ‘Methinks’? Methinks not. ‘Anywhoo’, ‘Whatnot’, ‘Hinky’, ‘Oprah’ and ‘Theresnomorefudge’ all run a close second, but ‘Methinks’ takes the cake. What is with all of these people running around like Ye Olde English Barons using ‘Methinks’ like they are on their way to a medieval crowning ceremony?

“Methinks my DVR has not recorded Battlestar Galactica for the full amount of time.”
“I would like to go to White Castle and partake in a suitcase of cheeseburgers, methinks.”
“Methinks I have overstayed my welcome at this particular Red Lobster.”

Who are you kidding? You are 42, overweight, and play video games all day. ‘I thinks’ that you are trying to sound more educated than you really are. Knock off all the pseudo-intellectual philosophizing and join us all in the real world. Stop prancing around like you are about to burst into verses of Shakespeare; you are not the fifth duke of Wilkenshire.

Methinks I am getting cranky in my old overweight age.

Language Oddities that should go away

“I could care less”

Could ya? This is actually a statement of how middle of the road you currently are. I could care more, I could care less, I’m basically right in the middle. In its essence, it is a ‘nothing’ statement. If you are trying to tell me how utterly indifferent you are, you are leaving the window open for actually caring less than you do, so it isn’t all that definitive now is it?

“Not for nothing”

“Not for nothing, I really enjoyed this Chicken Scapellini.” What are you talking about? So this statement isn’t for absolutely nothing? OK, thanks for letting me know. When would you use a statement that is actually for nothing? “For absolutely nothing, I have a cracked tooth.” How would you react to that statement?

“For what it’s worth…”

“For what it’s worth, I really enjoyed this Chicken Carbotellini” Why does that statement have to have a pre-set worth? Can’t the statement just stand on its own? I liked your chicken. Done. Don’t try to preface it with some kind of importance scale. Where does the scale start? The proceeding statement will not be worth much, or may be worth a lot, I’ll leave that up to you to decide.

“Any Italian-pronounced word with the ending vowel chopped off”

Most people know someone who is 100 percent, or at least mostly, Italian. If you do then you also know they have a curious habit of dropping the ending vowel off of words, mostly food for some reason. “Mozarell” (instead of Mozzarella) “Rigot” (instead of Ricotta) “Rigaton” (instead of Rigatoni) Why is this? I sure as hell don’t know. Anyway, just when you have them all figured out, they start including vowels for apparently no reason. Pepperoni (instead of “Peperon”) Spaghetti (instead of “Spaghet”) What the hell is going on here? And why is it only food? Are they trying to mess with me? Why isn’t it

“God Bless Americ.”
“I’ll see you next Frid.”?
“I bought a car this weekend. It’s a Hond Civic.”
“Welcome to New Jers, the Garden Stat.”
“I certainly am enjoying this Bologn sandwich.” (Another food one)

Give me an instruction manual or a map or something.

“FYI”

“For Your Information” Wow, thank you. For my own personal information. For me to keep in my own information warehouse. How kind. “FYI, you must wear pants in this library.” Because obviously, my information database was missing that entry before.

“Everything happens for a reason”

The king of all nothing statements. Everything happens for a reason? You’ll quickly notice that people only use this phrase when something good is about to happen (or just happened).

“I cut my toe off with my weed whacker, but when I went to the hospital, they replaced my toe with a solid steel Swiss army knife, and I got a date with the hot nurse who took care of me!”
“See, it’s like I always say, everything happens for a reason.”

Are you honestly, with a straight face, sitting there and telling me that the reason I cut my toe off was so that I could have it replaced with an all purpose tool used for a variety of everyday tasks, followed by a dinner date with Nurse Bimbo? I thought the reason I cut my toe off was because I was completely drunk and trying to use a weed whacker to remove the little hairs on the top of my foot. That is also a reason. “Everything happens for a variety of reasons” maybe? Some things happen for a reason, some things just happen and then other things happen after that, followed be even more things. Possibly related, possibly unrelated. I guess that’s too long of a phrase to say at a funeral.

“I’ll keep you in my thoughts”

Another thing you say to someone going through a hard time. I can think about my 3rd grade math teacher for 1.2 seconds, and technically I just kept her in my thoughts (for fewer than 2 seconds). Did that help her (or me) in any way or do anything discernible other than divert my attention away from my triple cheeseburger? No. This is a nicer way of saying “I won’t visit you, or make contact with you, other than to let your name pass through my brain once in a while. Won’t that be nice?”

Let’s make an effort to identify and eliminate all language oddities. Yes We Can!