Words Matter

Any­one else notice a gen­eral lack of atten­tion being duly paid to the words and phrases we are using from day to day? The ver­nac­u­lar is being sys­tem­at­i­cally pared down on one hand, while words are being repo­si­tioned or invented on the other.

We’re cer­tainly not against a col­or­ful vocab­u­lary, but we’re aware that some words are falling into dis­use or abuse and we’d like to rem­edy that sit­u­a­tion, in some circumstances.

So here’s a list of words we’d pre­fer to start hear­ing and read­ing to return us all to a gen­tler, more beau­ti­ful world.

Nap­sack

Mes­sen­ger bags are so 2005. Back­packs belong on hikes and camp­ing trips. If you want to haul around your crap, you need a nap­sack, because noth­ing says “I’m work­ing hard!” like a nap.

The Vapors

When women were gen­tile and not insist­ing on equal pay for equal work, the mere men­tion of a man’s bath­room area gave them “the vapors.” Usu­ally, a mint julep was called for, and we believe the world would be a bet­ter place with more mint juleps.

Veranda

Porches, decks and stoops can­not begin to com­pare with veran­das. Even patios pale in com­par­i­son. It doesn’t mat­ter what sort of con­struc­tion you have sur­round­ing the outer edge of your domi­cile, we believe you should start refer­ring to it as a veranda, and then smoke a Cuban cigar there while com­ment­ing on mod­ern art.

The­atre

Peo­ple have been mis­pro­nounc­ing this word for ages — sim­ply ages! It isn’t ‘THEE-uh-ter,’ it’s ‘thee-EIGHT-er.’ Try it on for size. “Stella, Gertrude and I are attend­ing the the­atre this evening! I cahn’t wait to see Helen Hayes — the first lady of Amer­i­can thee-EIGHT-er!”

Ori­en­tal

Remem­ber when the Ori­ent was fab­u­lous? Remem­ber when ‘fab­u­lous’ meant “other-worldly?” Nowa­days, men­tion Asia and all you think about is tsunamis and sweat shops — which is not to say that the idea of a tsunami inun­dat­ing a city of sweat­shops isn’t roman­tic, but we’d rather think of a place that’s so weird and amaz­ing that eat­ing ten­ta­cles and pig guts doesn’t mean head­ing to the cor­ner sushi place. It’s gen­er­ally taken to be a racist term, equat­ing peo­ple to rugs, but we think it just needs some finess­ing and some­one like David Chang to start a restau­rant called “Ori­en­tal Pig” to bring it back into favor.

Bully

Another word that needs an over­haul. ‘Bully’ now refers gen­er­ally to some gag­gle of screech­ing harpies at fin­ish­ing school who taunt a girl so badly that she ends up hang­ing from the rafters dur­ing choir prac­tice. But it used to mean “great!” as in, “You’re a bully chap!” or “What a bully nap­sack!” Bully!

Bohemian

“Lib­er­als” are being placed into a cat­e­gory of per­sons who want to romp about naked, mak­ing love to any­thing that moves, giv­ing money to artists who paint with their nether regions and drink­ing odd con­coc­tions of herbal reme­dies that also cause height­ened libidos and dazed sen­si­bil­i­ties. We used to call these peo­ple Bohemi­ans. Let’s give that a try, shall we?

Pants

Did you know that in more civ­i­lized coun­tries where they elect Com­mu­nists and Tories, ‘pants’ are the things you wear under­neath your pants? Thus, it is also used as a pejo­ra­tive to describe any­thing that is less than ade­quate, i.e. “That play last night was pants, but Helen Hayes was bully as the Oriental!”

Fort­night

If you’re fully employed in these eco­nom­i­cally chal­leng­ing times (lucky you!), it’s pos­si­ble that you’re paid biweekly, which means every two weeks and not every other week, which can be con­fus­ing, can it not? A fort­night is four­teen days — or, per­haps more accu­rately, four­teen nights. Isn’t it more excit­ing and mys­te­ri­ous to say you’re paid fort­nightly, as if it’s some weird hol­i­day that no one else knows about? Plus, elim­i­nat­ing the word ‘biweekly’ will also reduce con­fu­sion about your sex­u­al­ity, you bohemian.

Sten­to­rian

The words means “extremely loud,” as in, “I do wish those hor­ri­ble sten­to­rian Harley rid­ers would all explode in a con­fla­gra­tion of fiery destruction.”

Charmed

This is not, as some would have it, a tele­vi­sion show run­ning peren­ni­ally on TBS about three witches in San Fran­cisco who hate each other. Rather, being ‘charmed’ is some­thing you are when meet­ing a new acquain­tance. You can also be charm­ing, which is more polite than being “a blast,” which we believe sounds as if you just farted.

These are just a few sug­ges­tions to spice up your con­ver­sa­tions and brighten up those email cor­re­spon­dences that you fre­quently send. Feel free to add your own in the com­ments, so every­one can begin to con­verse in polite com­pany with­out quite so many “fucks.”

This is glass­dog, where words are as impor­tant as the peo­ple who mis­use them!

Tags: antiquated, Communism, foreign, pants, racism