Fatuous


Or why I just can't stomach some perfectly decent words

01/04/07

fat·u·ous

P Pronunciation Key (f

s)
adj.

Vacuously, smugly, and unconsciously foolish. See Synonyms at foolish.
Delusive; unreal: fatuous hopes.

Some words, try as I might, I can't take seriously. Some just scream, "that's wrong!" while others mutter, "that's stupid." In either case, I just can't bring myself to embrace certain terms in my native tongue.

Alright. Dictionary.com, the source of my wonderful definitions, claims that this abomination is a nonstandard use of "all right." Good enough for me. It looks like it should be pronounced so that the first syllable has the accent and sounds like the shortened form of "Albert." Is it that difficult to put in a space and another damned L? This is the same laziness that is showing up in "backseat," "alot," and my new favorite butchery of the English language, "eachother." At least my spell checker flags the last two as incorrect . . . the others have slipped like plague-carrying rats into the city of our unsuspecting speech patterns.

Hoodie. Where do I start? Well, adding "ie" or "y" to a word for shits and giggles is pretty damned stupid. And if you're going to make a "hood" into a "hoodie," why does it then mean "hooded sweatshirt?" Why not "leather hood" or "sex mask" or "stupid gay-ass word for people whose tongues are too busy savoring cheez doodles to be bothered saying two more damned syllables so that they sound like a friggin' grown-up?" Okay, maybe that last one was over the top, but you get the idea.

Snarky. This word just sounds too much like Snarf, the stupidest adventure cartoon character ever envisioned. It comes from good German and Dutch stock, and has a legitimate definition, but I can't imagine a time when I wouldn't rather say, "sounds like whoever wrote this was pissy."

The City. Yes, it's a phrase rather than a word. And an arrogant one, at that! "The City," at least if you're within a hundred miles of southeastern New York State, is supposed to refer to New York City. I won't use it as such because that city doesn't need anything to stroke its big, fat, overpopulated, asphalt-covered, polluted ego. I also won't call it New York, because that's the name of a state that I don't think deserves to be denigrated any more through confusion than it already has been by sharing its name with this icon of excessive humanity.
And as long as I'm on a tear, I also feel it's only fair to credit New York City with its entire population. This includes five boroughs: Manhattan, the Bronx, Staten Island, Brooklyn, and Queens. Someone who lives in Brooklyn does, in fact, live in New York City. It's your crap, and you're stuck with it.

Woobie. My only consolation about this train-wreck of letters is that Dictionary.com doesn't think it's a word. It really isn't, it's friggin' baby talk that perfectly intelligent adults think they can use to become more endearing. Guess what? You can't. If we didn't like you before, you can be damned sure we'll like you less when you start using stupid-ass words like "woobie." This is a perfect example of when something should simply not have a word to describe it. If you're still in your anal stage and need a friggin' blanket, keep it between you and your therapist - I don't want to know about it. Grow up, leave the blanket with Linus, and act like an adult.

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