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Real (adverb)

“Real” is not an adverb. It is an adjective. If you remember back to your school days (and I know it’s tough with all the bong residue clouding your memory) an adjective modifies a noun, while an adverb modifies an adjective, or another adverb. So, for example, the following is grammatically correct:

That guy is a real asshole.

This is not grammatically correct:

My asshole is real itchy.

But in common parlance, many English speakers, even yours truly at times, use “real” as an adverb instead of the proper word, “really”. We say it’s “real cold” or “real cloudy”. We might describe someone as “real slutty” or “real violent”. On Fridays, we might get “real drunk”.

Language evolves, so there’s nothing intrinsically wrong with doing this. Personally, I find “really” has a better rhythm to it. But the main reason I hate “real” as an adverb is simply because I can’t ignore the mistake. When I hear someone say it’s “real cold”, even if I restrain myself from correcting them, or butchering them with a hatchet, I still go through the mental motion of the correction in my head, “it’s REALLY cold, you fucking retard”.

Worse still is when I say it, and then have to correct myself.

It’s sad that it would actually be easier for me to get a lobotomy than to expect the world to speak proper.

I mean, properly. (DAMMIT!)

Posted 12 November 2009 † Christopher § Adverbs § Incorrectly Used § Uncategorized ‡ Comments (0) ° Tagged:

Pornography

It’s not 1955 anymore. With the exception of a few holdouts (probably loosely affiliated with Jesus) pornography is accepted as part of modern living. And while it may still have some very important political issues concerning the exploitation of women, most of what you will find out there is not obscene, much of it is fairly artistic, and a sizable minority of pornography is produced by women themselves. It’s even accepted by many as an enhancement for a couple’s sex life.

So why do we still give it this word that sounds like it was lifted from a piece of federal legislation outlawing it? And why the hell do we still have dictionaries with these kinds of definitions, e.g. Random House:

obscene writings, drawings, photographs, or the like, esp. those having little or no artistic merit

Totally out of touch. Here’s another, from American Heritage New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy:

Books, photographs, magazines, art, or music designed to excite sexual impulses and considered by public authorities or public opinion as in violation of accepted standards of sexual morality.

A violation of accepted standards of sexual morality? Really? I picture of tit? No, fuck YOU, American Heritage Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, or should I say, American Heritage Dictionary of Cultural Idiocy? Oh yes I totally went there.

Even the shortened versions, “porn”, and the ABOMINABLY bad, “porno” still sound ridiculous and archaic.

My suggestion? Let’s take back the word “smut”. Before people started saying “pornography” in the 19th century, they referred to “smut”. But nobody says “smut” anymore, so it’s ready to be repurposed. And they love repurposed words over at WordsILove. It’s not a true repurposing, but a shift in connotation, the way “queer” went from a slur to a positive affirmation of alternative gender and sexual identities. “Smut” also has the benefit of starting with our favorite consonant blend (heretofore to be called a “diblend”)….S+M.

I like masturbating to smut.

Posted 10 November 2009 † Christopher § Nouns § Poor Connotation § Sex § Too Long ‡ Comments (0) ° Tagged: , , , ,

Morose

I think I’ve hated morose longer than any word I can remember hating.

It’s likely I first got acquainted with it while studying for the SATs in high school, but I’m sure I hated it even before I heard it. But it took me until just today to realize why I hate it.

Normally I like words that sound like their meaning (here, “expressive of gloom, sullen”) but MOROSE sounds TOO MUCH like its meaning. It’s impossible to say it with a happy morose. Just to pronounce it, you have to adopt a slow, drawling elephant voice. “I feel…mo-ROOooows…” It takes work to say it, and when I’m feeling low, I get lazy.

So just say you’re sad from now on.

Posted 29 September 2009 † Christopher § Adjectives § SATs § Sounds too Much Like Meaning ‡ Comments (0) °

Cosplay

I think it is wonderful that adults like to play dress-up, be it for sexual purposes or just for fun. In fact, I even think it’s fair that we have a word specifically to describe the practice.

But the word “cosplay” was thought up by a monkey. A STUPID monkey. One with a brain injury and an incurable lisp. Also, the monkey is tied to the back of a door and people are throwing lawn darts at it. POISON TIP lawn darts.

Seriously, though. Just call it dress-up, okay?  I know you think “dress-up” only applies to children dressing up as mommy and daddy, or as doctor and mommy, or as daddy and daddy (if they live in Massachusetts), but really is it any different when an adult does it? You’re still wearing an outfit so you may pretend to be someone or something else. Just because you may sometimes do this so that someone can pretend they’re also having sex with that frog, or that character from Final Fantasy, doesn’t change the basic premise.

It’s dress-up. You’re dressing up. But that’s okay. Nobody thinks you’re a loser any more than we already did.

Posted 23 September 2009 † Christopher § Neologisms § Sex § Sounds Stupid § Trying to be Cool ‡ Comments (0) ° Tagged: ,

Goosepimples

I have actually stabbed people for saying this word. No foolin’. Guy says “goosepimples”, I pull out my supercool switchblade and stab him in the penis and also his throat several times. You probably saw it in the news. It was classified as a hate crime because I hate this word so much.

Here’s the thing, for real now. GooseBUMPS are cute. When you touch someone, say, kiss them on the neck or ears, and they get goosebumps, it’s very very sexy. But when they say, “you give me goosepimples!” all I can think about is pimples. Not sexy.

If you have a habit of saying “goosepimples” I suggest you unlearn it before you ruin an otherwise wonderful date.

Posted 16 September 2009 † Christopher § Bad Context § Nouns ‡ Comments (0) °

Vegas, Baby!

Please observe the following phenomenon:

When a person is going to Las Vegas, or even when simply talking about Las Vegas, rather than saying

I’m going to Las Vegas.

they say

I’m going to Vegas, baby!

Did Las Vegas change its name to Vegas Baby? It is the only reasonable explanation. The alternative is that everyone I know has been jamming acorns up their nose. But if this were true, the US economy would have crumbled leaving millions unemployed and thousands of families living in sprawling tent villages outside our cities.

Surely Las Vegas changed their name and didn’t tell me. Not like I care. I’m never going to Vegas Baby.

Posted 13 September 2009 † Christopher § Expressions § Sounds Stupid § Trying to be Cool ‡ Comments (0) ° Tagged:

Chyron

This is a word you may not be familiar with, but you’ve surely seen one. If you watch news, particularly cable news, the chyron is the section in the lower third of the screen where the station shows names, headlines, a news feed, or a stock ticker. It’s basically all the graphics layed over whatever else is being shown. The chyron can be altered remotely by multiple parties.

It gets its name from the first software used to produce these graphics, which was originally spelled “Chiron”. The company that makes the software changed its own name in 1975 to Chyron Corporation, to capitalize on the popularity of the software, and on the timeless cool of the letter “Y”. Today, “chyron” is a thing, not just a product or a company.

This often happens for companies that invent a popular new product or service; the company name becomes a word, such as xerox, fedex, google, wifebeater, and spoon (named after Edvard Tobias van Spuhn, its designer — the 1940’s original is still available through the Design Within Reach catalogue — for $700 or kr3,478).

Yesterday I posted a word I love: “chyme“. If I apply the same reasoning, “chyron” should be a word I love, but it isn’t, because “chyron” is a stupid word for the thing it describes. “Chyron” sounds like a Buck Rogers brand, or at least Star Trek brand, of evil robot, not a video-graphics package. But now it’s too late, this thing is established and we’ll be hearing about chyrons for years. Given time, it will be verbed just like xerox and google and bukkake.

Posted 08 May 2009 † Christopher § Doesn't Match Meaning § Weird Stuff ‡ Comments (0) ° Tagged:

Blowjob

This one has bugged me for years. We have many euphemisms for oral sex, which I won’t go into here, but only a few terms that are used in common parlance.  There are a fair number of sexy ways a person can describe fellatio, such as “suck your cock”, “suck you off”, “fuck my mouth”, “come down my throat”, and so on.  Even “head” is useful under certain circumstances.  But “blowjob” is still the most compact and convenient noun we have to describe this act, and it’s a TERRIBLE word.  First you have that opening “BL”, which sounds like someone throwing up, then that “J” which is never a sexy sound, and then the fact that when you give a blowjob, you don’t blow anything — you suck.  And to call it a JOB implies that it’s hard work.

If anything, it should be called “suckfun”.

Here’s a short unsourced explanation of the origin of this word from author/historian Charles Panati: The Origin of ‘Blow Job’.

Posted 06 May 2009 † Christopher § Nouns § Sex ‡ Comments (1) ° Tagged:

Oxymoron

Get rid of this word. Just get rid of it. We cannot have a word that ends in “moron” that has nothing to do with morons. Granted the “moron” in “oxymoron” comes from the same place as the “moron” in “moron” (the Greeks, those fuckers), and I’m sure at some point this word had a more generic meaning since it’s prefix “oxy-” (sharp) and root “moros” (stupid) combine to mean “pointedly foolish”, but now it simply means “contradiction in terms”. The meaning has lost its sense of place.

I realize we need a word for this concept, however. I propose keeping the pronunciation but dramatically altering the spelling. Examples include:

  • augsimorin
  • owksemaran
  • ockseemoren
  • ugsimorun
  • awxzymooroon

I realize these look much, much worse than “oxymoron” but this is the price you must pay to move language forward.

Posted 27 April 2009 † Christopher § Doesn't Match Meaning § Nouns § Sounds Stupid ‡ Comments (0) ° Tagged:

Xtreme

Why is this horseshit still going on? Why is it necessary to be “extreme” anything, and at that, so extreme you forget how to spell? “Xtreme” isn’t extreme anymore, it’s boring and predictable.

We’ve talked about the “dirty little X” before. We love that X. But “Xtreme” just throws that X right in our faces, and when everybody does it, it gets oversaturated, and loses its cool. It becomes soggy, loathsome, and detestable.

There is a band called Xtreme. There are TWO off-road motorcycle companies named Xtreme (that I know of). Apparently the other motocross producers just make motorcycles for retirement communities (which would be extreme in its own way). Even the Extreme Motorcycle Company can’t keep up with these mavericks.

There is an endless list of companies with this name:

Xtreme RC Cars
X-Treme Rock Climbing
Xtreme Outdoor Karting
X-Treme Radio
Xtreme Notebooks
X-treme Geek
Xtreme Couture (That’s a MMA dojo, not a dress store)
Xtreme Gymnastics

I tip my hat to the creators of the X-Games, though. In 1995 the X-Games debuted in Providence, but they were called the “Extreme Games”. The following year, the name was changed to the X-Games. They totally skipped the intermediary “Xtreme Games” and got right to the point. I miss the winter mountain biking slalom, though. That was xtreme. Xtremely retarded.

Posted 24 April 2009 † Christopher § Getting Attention § Spelling § Weird Stuff ‡ Comments (0) ° Tagged: ,

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