Ginnie Graham: Some words deserve to get the ax in new year
BY GINNIE GRAHAM World Staff Writer
Saturday, December 29, 2012
12/29/12 at 4:34 AM
One of my mains is so adorkable that it's literally cray-cray not to be jelly of her.
Yes, that is a sentence that could be stated or texted in 2012.
Now, it's time to banish nearly all of it.
As we all start our New Year's resolutions, let's resolve to kick out a bit of ridiculous slang from our vocabulary.
In years past, there was a hope that some words would disappear.
Remember baby bump? It's still around and getting bigger.
We still hear about "epic fails" and "hipsters" who would fight the man if they weren't so disengaged.
Time, Atlantic Wire and the Huffington Post are among the groups reflecting on the cringe-worthy words of the past year.
Top offenders: Here are my picks for elimination:
Adorkable - Even with "New Girl" starring Zooey Deschanel on my DVR, this word has to go.
Amazeballs - Adding "ball" to the end of a word does not make it better.
Cray, or cray-cray - As in "You are acting so cray-cray." I hear that a lot from my 5-year-old, which makes me crazy enough to get rid of it.
Totes, jelly, YOLO, fro-yo and all other shortened words and phrases - "Totes" means totally, "jelly" refers to jealous, "You only live once" and frozen yogurt" are the others. It doesn't really save any time not finishing all the words.
Mommy porn - So, the "Fifty Shades of Grey" trilogy gave us this dreadful term, once known as romance. Oh, how I miss the sweet Harlequin-inspired descriptions.
Jeah - Thank you Olympic swimmer Ryan Lochte for mixing "good" and "yeah" into popularizing this weird one.
Percents - The Occupy Wall Streeters supported the 99 percent and railed against the 1 percent. Presidential candidate Mitt Romney complained about the 47 percent. Math confuses me, so I'm out.
Mains - Refers to a close, tight-knit group of people, such as "My sister is one of my mains." My sister would also smack me if I said that.
Literally - All English teachers and speakers of correct grammar cringe at Rob Lowe's "Parks and Recreation" character bastardizing this word. To review, literally means it happened, "I literally turned the channel." Everything else is metaphorical or figurative.
Actually - Might as well throw this one in, too. Actually is literally just as irritating in conversation. It's a word overused to speak down to someone.
"Actually, blue is not your color, and I do know the definition of literally," I said before my sister smacked me.
Artisanal - Some marketing hipster is laughing somewhere that adding this to every food label literally increased sales. Actually, it doesn't mean anything.
Shakespeare-worthy: The English language is interesting and irritating for its complexity.
It's good to embrace new, more meaningful terms as part of the evolution of language.
William Shakespeare is credited with inventing something like 1,700 words, including frugal, luggage, gossip, assassination and cold-blooded.
But I am hard-pressed to imagine the Bard promoting an artisanal wine as being literally amazeballs.
Original Print Headline: Some words deserve to get the ax in new year
