For all the smoke rings we've all blown in recent years about fancy communication strategies and measuring ROI and the like, the most reliable way to get communicators yaking is to mutter a half-formed observation about words, and stand back. (See my last post as evidence.)
A better formed opinion about words is that: Lots of perfectly good ones are disappearing, for reasons logical and mysterious.
"Butterfingers." We don't cook anymore, and so we don't have a name for somebody who can't catch a ball.
"Palaver." Perhaps we didn't need this one, but anybody who's ever read about an H.L. Mencken palaver with George Jean Nathan wishes palavers weren't entirely things of the past.
"Smarts." As in, "ouch, that smarts." Ask anybody under 35 about that usage and they'll look at you blankly. Which will smart.
Bet you don't know what it means to "get your ashes hauled."
"Saloon." My friends Tony Judge and Ed Reardon were the last two men in the world who refered to bars as "saloons." And Eddie died in August.
We're losing a hundred agriculture-based expresssions like "make hay while the sun shines." If you don't know anything about hay, that expression makes no sense.
Similarly, how would a twit who grew up on Nintendo have any idea why we old blacksmiths need to "strike while the iron's hot"?
My friend Bill Sweetland hits a bad golf shot and calls himself a "nitwit." The day Bill quits playing golf (or learns to stop swinging so fast from the top of his backwing), "nitwit" disappears from the American lexicon.
These words—especially for word people—are the connection not just to our own ancestors, but to all of history, and I for one stubbornly cling to these babies.
There are many more. Let's think of them, and start using them in our everyday conversations, stiffly at first, until they finally catch back on.
* Thanks to Jane Greer for headline.
Comments (27)
Are the new expressions being coined as colorful or evocative, or does the technology that inspires so many of them lack the sensual feel of something like "make hay," etc.?
Posted by Diane | December 11, 2007 7:01 PM
Posted on December 11, 2007 19:01
Great point, Diane. I think all of life is getting more abstract, less sensual, and I don't think it's one of the better consequences of progress.
Posted by David Murray | December 11, 2007 7:45 PM
Posted on December 11, 2007 19:45
Get your ashes hauled? Is that like opening a can of whoop ---?
Posted by eileen | December 11, 2007 10:35 PM
Posted on December 11, 2007 22:35
Did you see Merriam-Webster's word of the year?
Posted by Diane | December 12, 2007 7:43 AM
Posted on December 12, 2007 07:43
Yes, "w00t." How inspiring.
Leave it to those gamers to enrich our civilization ....
http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5imcJd2ELqieBlFxBLhBnP5k4juaAD8TFGLM00
Posted by David Murray | December 12, 2007 7:54 AM
Posted on December 12, 2007 07:54
I know all those words and phrases and I'm going to make a commitment to continue using them. I will also teach my child to use them. I'll get her teacher to give me the words in Spanish as well. This should be fun and funny. :)
Posted by Susan Cellura | December 12, 2007 9:00 AM
Posted on December 12, 2007 09:00
It's a capital idea!
Posted by David Murray | December 12, 2007 9:02 AM
Posted on December 12, 2007 09:02
You young old curmudgeon! Languages grow through play and necessity. "w00t" (or "w007" for purists) is playful, and gamers found it necessary to invent a word that expressed gamer glee.
Furthermore, the gamer generation throws f-bombs into spoken sentences as if they were commas. I've often felt as though it's the only word in their vocabulary. So I find "w00t" hilarious proof that even gamers can add something to our living language.
Posted by Jane Greer | December 12, 2007 9:12 AM
Posted on December 12, 2007 09:12
Jane seems to know a suspicious amount about gamers and their generation. Furthermore, she seems a tad defensive about their nihilistic pursuits.
(When I want to "play," I go golfing or I engage Scout in a rousing game of checkers. When I want to "commit suicide but just for the weekend" I go hang out and play video games with my nephew Danny.)
Posted by David Murray | December 12, 2007 9:39 AM
Posted on December 12, 2007 09:39
As someone who actually has made hay when I was growing up on a dairy farm, I'll be happy for my newborn son if he never has to know what that really means. It's hard work - and hot work when the sun is shining.
But I'm with you on "nitwit" - it captures a certain something that "knob" or "tool" or "doofus" just can't.
Posted by Rueben | December 12, 2007 9:51 AM
Posted on December 12, 2007 09:51
I just quoted our CEO as saying, "People see us as a bunch of ninnies in Southern Oregon."
I love that word, and its cousin "nitwit."
But my favorite (being an Anglophile) is "tosser."
Posted by eileen | December 12, 2007 9:57 AM
Posted on December 12, 2007 09:57
A little hard work never hurt anyone!
(And that is one of those expressions that I used to hear.)
Posted by Diane | December 12, 2007 10:48 AM
Posted on December 12, 2007 10:48
I like using the old words simply because it makes you different and edgy (or weird depending on who you ask), especially being part of the twit (ahem) Nintendo generation.
People don't give me a ration of shit. People give me guff.
That's not cool. That my friend is groovy!
I'm wearing my button-fly dungeries (sic) today.
What a load of rubbish.
Posted by Rob Patey | December 12, 2007 1:37 PM
Posted on December 12, 2007 13:37
You mean your dungaree pantaloons, right Rob?
Posted by David Murray | December 12, 2007 1:54 PM
Posted on December 12, 2007 13:54
Dungarie loincloth, sounds like! :-)
Posted by Jane Greer | December 12, 2007 2:23 PM
Posted on December 12, 2007 14:23
Ah, but the proof is in the pudding, is it not?
Posted by Colleen | December 12, 2007 6:02 PM
Posted on December 12, 2007 18:02
This just in: I've been told "w00t" is so ancient history.
Posted by Diane | December 12, 2007 8:04 PM
Posted on December 12, 2007 20:04
Reuben, you forgot to mention the 120-degree temperature in the barn's loft. I'm with you buddy; never again on the hay and sunshine shit.
Wow -- I haven't thought of button-fly pants in ages. Does anybody still make those?
[POLITICALLY INCORRECT ALERT]
When I was a kid, we got in trouble for calling someone a "faggot" if he wasn't one. Today, you get in trouble for it if he *is* one.
Will
Posted by Will Daniel | December 13, 2007 5:15 AM
Posted on December 13, 2007 05:15
The cat's out of the bag.
Posted by Diane | December 13, 2007 7:03 AM
Posted on December 13, 2007 07:03
And the horse has left the barn.
Posted by David Murray | December 13, 2007 7:10 AM
Posted on December 13, 2007 07:10
As well you should, Will.
Posted by Don Lariviere | December 13, 2007 8:13 AM
Posted on December 13, 2007 08:13
I'd say the term "political correctness" has not been a particularly constructive addition to the language.
For instance, just what does Will mean here when he warns us that he is about to be "politically incorrect"?
Does he really mean to warn us, so the squeamish among us will sheild our eyes in the nick of time? Or does he mean to say, "I'm going to gratuitously use the word 'faggot' right now, and anybody who doesn't like it—well, you're just being political correct?"
Even though I came of age during the height of the period—early 1990s—when everyone was up in arms about "political correctness" and how it was going to bleed the very colors from the American flag—I do not use the term—I do not even THINK the term—because I've found it simply has no relationship to my idea of what the world's problems.
Posted by David Murray | December 13, 2007 10:53 AM
Posted on December 13, 2007 10:53
My earlier post was merely an observation based on my knowledge of how the word was used in the 1950s and the recent "entertainment news" story about the soap opera star who lost his job and cried all the way to the rehab clinic, "I didn't call him a faggot, I didn't call him a..."
Nobody here should have been offended by that plain and simple observation. If you were, you are way too sensitive.
David, good guesses, but it wasn't either or; it was both.
Will
Posted by Will Daniel | December 13, 2007 2:43 PM
Posted on December 13, 2007 14:43
Will, I didn't understand what you were getting at exactly, or how it related to this discussion, and I think I still don't. So the usage seemed gratuitous, as I said. And your flagging it as "politically incorrect" predisposed me to think so going in ..... I was too confused to be offended.
Posted by David Murray | December 13, 2007 4:25 PM
Posted on December 13, 2007 16:25
And I, as an openly gay man, was too offended to be confused. I can't believe I saw that word "in print" today, and suspect it wouldn't be as easily explained away if it were a racial or ethnic slur, regardless of the author's intent.
Posted by Don Lariviere | December 13, 2007 7:50 PM
Posted on December 13, 2007 19:50
I will always be in my father's debt for teaching me what "duff" means -- which he did, in part, by spanking mine when I deserved it. I've preserved it in the lyrics to one of my songs:
"As for blue-collar work, I'd rather sit on my duff.
Aw, shucks, I ain't country enough!"
Posted by Greg Marsh | December 17, 2007 3:32 PM
Posted on December 17, 2007 15:32
This was in a news story about an intergenerational program teaming older adults with teenagers (guess which is which in this exchange):
At one point, Golemo showed Darrah his weekly planner filled with notes scribbled in every box. "Busy man," Darrah said with a smile.
"No moss grows under my feet, that's for sure," Golemo shot back.
Darrah stared blankly.
"Moss?" she asked. "What does that mean?"
Posted by Diane | December 19, 2007 10:02 AM
Posted on December 19, 2007 10:02