Annual lists of new words are usually a treasure trove of portmanteau and tech slang, with something for everyone to screech “EW!” about. The American Dialect Society’s list for 2022 is rich in both, predominately youth culture slang that slipped right by me, like “rizz.” I  generally like to keep up, but not knowing what rizz means was actually a blessing in disguise. In fact, it’s such an annoying word  that I’m choosing to believe it doesn’t even exist (like “goblin mode”).

Getting back to The American Dialect Society, its word for 2022 is the suffix “-ussy” from “pussy”

(as in “bussy” = “boy pussy,” now humorously attached to many
words) also -ussification: the process of creating new blended words with the -ussy suffix.

Runners-up included “quiet quitting”, “nepo baby”, “Dark Brandon”, and BFFR.

Words and terms about gender issues have proliferated in the last year, and here it’s hard not to sound reactionary in response to how difficult they are to navigate. In 2018, Amherst College posted a document titled Common Language Guide, with a 40 page glossary of terms serving “a need to come to a common and shared understanding of language…around identity, privilege, oppression and inclusion.”

Uh-oh. Here’s how the guide defines heterosexuality:

“A term developed as diagnosis of the hyper-infatuation with a different sex, first used by sexologist Karl-Maria Kertbeny in 1868…. [It] is used today to denote the normalized dominant sexual identity.”

Hmph! Now I feel a little less-than, know what I mean? I was comfortable with being hetero but now I see I might need to apologize for it. The definition of femininity is more strident, so brace yourselves. It includes the subtle admonishment, “Performing femininity in a culturally established way is expected of people assigned female at birth.” In this view, femininity is fraudulent, a performance, unless you’re queer or trans.

The  guide warns against “homonormativity,” or

the ever-present phenomenon where members of the LGBTQ+ community subscribe to heteronormative approximations of intimate, romantic and sexual lives that are the product of white, neoliberal (capitalist), sexist, transmisogynistic and cissexist norms.

And that’s fine, up to a point. That point would be the inability to converse with other humans without stepping into a minefield of acronyms designed to recognize categories of “identity.” Yesterday, I encountered the term “persons with male bodies” for the first time. Keep it up, you guys (okay, not “guys, how about “comrades?) and life will be one big microaggression.

Apparently, the document has been removed from the college website but I feel enriched by learning the term transmisogynoir (“the marginalization of black trans women and trans feminine people that is inclusive of transphobia, racism, and misogyny, and how all of these intersect.”) Now that’s a wonderful portmanteau, not as good  as mansplaining but still music to the ear.

Just yesterday, I read the word “manfluencer” and laughed out loud. Adding man as a prefix, like mancave and manosphere, is always fun, but I hunger for more and better manonyms, like the one I made up to describe male sulking: “mannui” (pronounced, duh, män-wee). At the same time, I can’t stand terms with lady thrown in, like “ladyboner,” ladyparts, or even Lady Gaga. Words can have different effects on different people, but some are universally disliked (moist) or enjoyed (gossamer). Just recently, I’ve been especially sensitive to “lived experience.” It’s so, so awful.

Young people today are inventing words that infantalize, like lil, smol, feels, and adulting, which handily explains their entire stance. Good for them. I’m just glad I can still use dope and wack to signal my feels, in case they are interested. And I have my own list of words that I’m ready to banish for 2023. Here they are:

Yassss (a perennial scourge, like “journey”)
thicc
thirsty
fam
main character
if I’m honest
GOAT
check all the boxes
understood the assignment
pro tip
cringe
fire

But here’s something to feel good about: Compared to their older counterparts, Gen Z are more concerned about how they use slang in conversation. Nearly half (46%) of Gen Z Americans worry about using slang terms incorrectly, compared to 32% of Baby Boomers.

Love to see it.

As I’m always saying, words matter! Unless you excel at interpretive dance, use them with care. Or to quote Jules in Pulp Fiction: English, Motherfucker!

*disclosure: Some have expressed concern about my absence. I’m finding it hard to write, due to senility and existential malaise. So don’t worry, I’m still here. Sort of. xo

A thread on Facebook caught my attention last week. It was on a neighborhood page, where the Discourse is usually confined to incensed complaints about the homeless and reports of lost cats. This one was posted by an administrator and titled “Ask an atheist.” It was an invitation for questions, and the thread was, miraculously for fb, respectful.

One guy posited that atheism was itself a form of religion. This was so silly that I jumped in to ask how an absence of belief could be deemed a form of belief.

I learned that there is “hard” atheism and “soft” atheism, and I learned a fun new word: Ignosticism. This is the idea that the question of the existence of God is meaningless because the word “God” has no coherent and unambiguous definition. That sounds kind of petulant and argumentative, doesn’t it?

I’ve always considered myself an atheist but now I realize that I’m more of an apatheist.

Apatheism considers the question of the existence or nonexistence of deities to be fundamentally irrelevant in every way that matters.

I know that “god” doesn’t exist but I don’t care either way. Let god believe in me, if he/she wants. The whole idea is stupid but others are welcome to it as long as they don’t tell me to have a blessed day. I must say that the stupidest form of religion is the one whose adherents say, following a terrible personal tragedy, that their faith in god helped them through it. The fact that god didn’t prevent the tragedy in the first place doesn’t seem to bother them.

You probably know that in most societies, women are more religious than men, but have you wondered why? There is no scholarly consensus on this. There is the theory that this gender gap in religiosity is caused by differences in risk preference between men and women. Risk preference theory argues that irreligiousness is a form of risk taking because irreligiousness risks eternal punishment such as going to hell. Because women tend to be more risk averse than men, they are more religious.

Another argument is that women are more likely to be sanctioned for nonconforming behaviors than men; thus, choosing to be nonreligious is more socially risky for women. To avoid stigma or social sanctioning, women tend to choose to be religious. I like this one. It blames the patriarchy, and why not?

But wait! Among Jews and Muslims, men are more religious than women. In these religions, men are required to attend public religious services while women are not. So again, blame the patriarchy (or maybe thank the patriarchy.)

As an apatheistic Jew, I admit that Christians who are super vocal about their religion tend to either annoy me or perversely amuse me. I have kind of an alter ego who I call the Hissing S lady, who is very Southern and very Christian. When I do this character, it’s hard for me to stop. Luckily, my husband doesn’t mind her. You can enjoy her here.

*For extra credit, go see a category of Renaissance art that depicts Jesus with an erection.

The New York Times wrote about Karen, the derogatory term of the moment, and defined it for us Karens:

a pseudonym for a middle-aged busybody with a blond choppy bob who asks to speak to the manager. Now, the moniker has most recently morphed into a symbol of racism and white privilege.

A “Karen” now roams restaurants and stores, often without a mask during this coronavirus era, spewing venom and calling the authorities to tattle, usually on people of color and often putting them in dangerous situations.

Obviously, it’s so Karen to complain about this. And I’m not going to, even though I’m still annoyed by Becky. I’m just wondering if someone my age, an old baby boomer, can be a Karen. They seem so millennial. Maybe we can have Karen Sr, which I will answer to if necessary.

While Karen symbolizes white privilege, Becky seemed more specific. She was a white woman who kissed up to Black women, always wanting to voice her support without actually doing anything to be an ally.

If Becky is still operative, that gives us three categories of white women: Karens, Beckys, and allies. Periodt.

When I complained about Becky, I was clearly resentful. Here’s what I wrote:

I have tried to imagine an essay about The 5 types of Keisha or The 5 types of Guadalupe or The 5 Types of Mei-Ling and I just can’t. Not because I am too nice or color-blind but because I’m not used to categorizing people of different ethnicities. Sue me. (WHITE JEWISH PRIVILEGE.) I can’t and I don’t want to. How would that help, you know?

I managed to piss off people I had no wish to piss off. I came back with a more “nuanced” explication of my stance. It was just Becky of me, in no way helpful. Now that I’m Karen Sr., I’m not going to try to squirm out of it, Karenishly, but instead I embrace it.

However, Black women who hate me simply for being white can now be LaQuisha. While I’m out Karening around, LaQuisha is banging out a 5,000 word manifesto about intersectionality. And that’s fine! I probably won’t be reading it, because, duh, Karen.

Women named Karen are feeling victimmy and some are writing defensive shit that is soooo Karen of them. However, here’s the response that Karens who are allies (I know, it’s confusing) are posting on Facebook:

I can’t get bent out of shape. I have no control over it. There are people losing their lives every day. If it’s the only thing I have to be upset about in this world, then good for me.”

and

It [is] very upsetting, but I would sacrifice my name for the[movement].

How gracious, right? How would you react if your name were used to describe all that is loathsome in our society? Luckily, in 2018, Karen ranked as the 635th most popular girl’s name, alongside Elaine and Dallas.Good news but what kind of monster would name her daughter “Dallas??” This makes me want to cry.

Meanwhile, there are some who view Karen as a racist, classist slur.

LaQuisha, if you’re reading this, DON’T BE MAD! I’m just an old lady, don’t come @ me! It’s not easy being Karen Sr. It’s hard to learn the latest memes and insults. I’m doing my best to stay relevant, like Madonna, who strikes me as a total Becky of the worst kind.

More Karenology here.

I just learned a new word that describes my condition: avolition.

People with avolition often want to complete certain tasks but lack the ability to initiate behaviours necessary to complete them. Avolition is most commonly seen as a symptom of some other disorder, but might be considered a primary clinical disturbance of itself (or as a coexisting second disorder) related to disorders of diminished motivation.

It’s not the same as laziness, which is assumed to be a choice. It’s not the same as apathy, which is:

a lack of feeling, emotion, interest, or concern about something. It is a state of indifference, or the suppression of emotions such as concern, excitement, motivation, or passion. An apathetic individual has an absence of interest in or concern about emotional, social, spiritual, philosophical, or physical life and the world.

I have a surfeit of concern, interest and emotion, currently; I just can’t do anything. Is this Covid related? Is it the result of being stuck at home for a billion days in a row? Of having only one other person in my environment? Of not having to hustle for money? Hours on the couch, watching TV? The lack of concrete things to look forward to, given the uncertainty of the “new normal?”

The term “new normal” still arouses my ire, so that’s good, right? Also the word “Zoom.” Also the shortening of  the already annoying “folks” to “folk.” Folk have grown tired of systemic racism, sure, but so have PEOPLE!

Back to avolition, here are some of the things I can’t do: deal with bills, get dressed, water the lawn, cook, put my shoes away, make the bed, make phone-calls, clean the house, drive, or write. It’s not so much Why Bother as much as it is I just Can’t.

I did force myself to sit at the computer to write this! It might be an aberration or the Something of my condition. What is the word I should use here instead of Something? I genuinely can’t think of it. I could use “abatement” but that’s not a word in my normal lexicon.

Something something something something! Something something.

I started keeping a list of words I was unable to retrieve for either hours or days.
orchid
aurora
Robert Duval

But then I stopped keeping the list, because avolition. I will try to start again. If I get enough to make a haiku, it will be a worthwhile project.

Do projects have to be worthwhile? I hope not. What are you guys up to? Are you putting your shoes away? Any new words? Advice or [something]?

images (c) Wellcome Library

Words continues to thrill and annoy me on a daily basis and I know you feel the same. Right now, I am creeped out anew by the word “tho,” as used on Instagram. It is not only gratuitous (” Those nails, tho.”) but the spelling is like a knife in my heart. MAKE IT STOP. So here’s a list I just came across, about words “you should never use to describe yourself.” I’m pretty sure these are all in the context of job interviews, because where else might someone claim to be “innovative?”

Here they are:

Innovative
World-class
Driven
Extensive experience
Authority
Global-provider
Motivated
Creative
Results-oriented
Responsible
Track record
Organizational
Guru
Curator
Passionate
Strategic
Collaborative

Ew! Who would use these words to describe themselves? Maybe they’re the professional equivalent of self-negating dating-app words like “eccentric” or “classy.” But wait. If you string all those words together, they might make a persuasive sales-pitch for a booty call! Try that out, mentally at least.

On another front, who is not sick of “quid pro quo” at this point? How about this phrase instead, from Virgil: sunt lacrimae rerum  (tears haunt this world).

Here’s another list of those minutely specific words we don’t have in English, like Bakku-shan, Japanese for a woman who looks pretty from behind but not from the front.

Then there is the issue of linguistics by gender, like the female use of the word ‘just.”

Finally,  let me run this by you. It’s a quote by physicist Wolfgang Pauli, after reading a colleague’s paper:

This paper is so bad it is not even wrong.

I was so amused by it that I repeated it to *someone* who did not share my delight and argued about why not for the next five hours (okay, five minutes that felt like hours.)

Please tell me if you like it, or if you don’t, using rational considerations and back-up sources. Thank you in advance, xoxo.

Granular is a word that’s starting to make me wince, maybe because of the people who use it or maybe because it’s so onomatopoeic.  I can almost feel it in my shoe, like sand. Nevertheless, I just came across a new theory that I love, involving “emotional granularity.” Just as you would suspect, it means getting into the minutia of emotions, the gradations that distinguish one type of anger, let’s say, from another.

Apparently, it helps to label an emotion when you’re trying to manage it. I guess that makes sense, if only because stopping to label it is a form of counting to ten. You also have to accept the notion that there are all kinds of anger, and in other cultures there are kinds we may not have experienced or named.

Germans have a word that means “a face in need of a slap,”or backpfeifengesicht. I’m not really familiar with that feeling but I’ve heard men talk about “the kind of face you want to punch.” Mandarin Chinese has a word for anger directed toward oneself; that one is familiar and ongoing. Ancient Greeks distinguished between short-term anger (orge ) and a long-lasting anger that’s permanent (menin.)

In Thailand, there’s seven degrees of anger, starting with displeasure and ending with (just guessing) homicidal rage.

So anyway, your ability to distinguish between the many varieties of your emotional experiences can help you cope better. If you can say to yourself, “That guy is an annoying cunt” instead of “Why are people so awful!” you will be less depressed and less given to binge drinking. Studies have shown, alright?

I have already written about the varieties of misery experienced in other countries but not anger. I think that in the U.S, people are experiencing new and debilitating forms of anger that probably need to be labeled, like the kind you feel when people with Southern accents talk about Christianity. Or the kind you feel when you listen to Tucker Carlson. And the kind you feel when reading about immigrants in cages.

What about the kind you feel when the person in line in front of you at Starbucks has a ridiculous order? After all these years, I still have that one!!! What about when the thing you wanted at a great sale price is no longer available in your size?

What about the kind when you see Taylor Swift trying to dance? Or the kind when someone starts talking about “the program”? So many types of anger, yearning to be named.

I often have the one when your husband keeps reflexively contradicting you. Today, I experienced the anger you feel when your dog eats your toast because you looked away for ONE FUCKING SECOND at your Instagram feed.

So, what do you guys think? Angry? Is it the kind where you thought reading a blog would be entertaining but it was just a waste of time? Are you buying the concept of emotional granularity and can you name an emotion that needs it’s own label, like schadenfreude? I’m going to call that Tucker Carlson feeling tuckerschmerz. And I’m hoping that this time next year, it will be a fading memory rather than menin .

I’ve been thinking how stupid it is to have an International Women’s Day, but I didn’t know how to approach my feelings without seeming reflexively contrarian. Women are great, but no greater than non-women.

International women are great but so are local women. Women have supported me but woman have also been mean to me, and I mean mean. Woman make up half of the world’s population, so a single day of recognition seems absurd. All the jargon of fourth-wave feminism is repellent to me. I want equal pay for equal work and equal treatment under the law, but that’s where my interest ends. I know, I know.

I once believed that women wanted three things: Oral sex, ice cream, and a nice handbag. Now I feel I was way too hasty. We don’t want the handbag anymore. It’s no longer a big deal, right ladies? So I don’t know what that third thing is. Maybe my readers can suggest something.

I do know what women don’t want. We don’t want to be raped or assaulted. We don’t want mansplaining, pantyhose, clitorectomy, burkas, menstruation-shaming, honor killings, forced marriage, cellulite, and we don’t want men to push on our heads when we’re servicing them, alright? We want to breathe!

Luckily, I’ve just discovered the word “canceled” even though I’m late to the concept. Canceled refers to total disinvestment in something (or someone). It can come swiftly with one stupid tweet, or any instance of pissing people off. Jussie Smolett has been canceled, obviously, and so has Kanye. But not all cancellations are the result of a transgression; you can be canceled for no reason. We must all live in fear of being canceled, especially if we’re heavy users of social media.

“It’s a cultural boycott,” said Lisa Nakamura, a professor at the University of Michigan who studies the intersection of digital media and race, gender and sexuality. “It’s an agreement not to amplify, signal boost, give money to. People talk about the attention economy — when you deprive someone of your attention, you’re depriving them of a livelihood.”

If you announce that someone is canceled, they’re canceled. But the cancellation may not be universal. Or people can forget you’ve been cancelled, as in the case of Kanye or Taylor Swift. Under certain circumstances, the canceled may be uncanceled.

I’m canceling myself before someone else does it. But first I’m canceling International Women’s Day. Because once you’ve been canceled, you probably lose the power to cancel.

Wait! Now that I’m canceled, and stripped of relevance, can I conscript people into canceling shit for me? Will someone cancel Ivanka Trump? And Tucker Carlson? Also, Halsey? Let me know!

The best example of cancel culture is a Kosoko Jackson, a writer whose young-adult novel was pulled before publication due to a frenzied twitter backlash. Jackson, who is not only black and gay but also a “sensitivity reader for a major publishing house,” had the temerity to include an Albanian Muslim character in his novel and MAKE HIM A VILLAIN!!! Ha. Bastard. I hope he’s learned his lesson.

Yesterday, I heard MSNBC commentator Ari Melber discussing the infamous memo, and he described it as parsimonious. Naturally, I was upset.

I love Ari Melber. He is so smart, so affable and charming, and I even like his infatuation with rap and hip hop. So the word-usage problem was especially hurtful. I decided to write to him. Here’s what I wrote:

Tonight I heard you use the word “parsimonious” in reference to the stupid memo released today. I was upset because my husband and I just played an imaginary game of Who Would We Rather Have Dinner With, you or Chris Hayes, and you won!!!!

Did you mean to use parsimonious or did you mean to use another word?

No pressure, but everything is hanging on this.

Best regards and thank you for being a light in the wilderness.

Joane xo

I think I was a little stoned, because I misspelled my own name. Funnily enough, Chris Hayes also worried me recently when he used the word disinterested as a synonym for uninterested, which of course it is not. (I now know this glitch to be a phantonym.)

These are little things, but I want the people I respect to be above such mistakes. That’s how much I am invested in words. It’s emotional and visceral and even moral: USE THE RIGHT WORDS, MOTHERFUCKER, to paraphrase Pulp Fiction.

My sister loves it when people say “supposably” but that’s different. That’s just adorable. I love when someone says “had went.” I also loved it when a policeman responded to a complaint about my son’s garage band, and as he lectured us, he said something about “conversating”. My son and I exchanged a look of delight that I’ll always cherish.

Talking to my shrink recently, he encouraged me to let go of something. And I explained that I’m against letting go. Of anything. I just don’t like the concept, because I don’t like the words Let Go. I always interpret them as abandonment. I prefer to hold on, and hold on tight.  I suggested that I refused to Let Go of something, but I was open to walking around it.

How can words not matter? Every word, every inflection, means something. That’s why we have them! As imprecise as they are, you can still come pretty close to expressing your ideas if you know enough words. You can be thrilled to your core by a few words strung together in just the right way. You can be dismayed or even heartbroken as well. If you’re like me, you can go around being exasperated by people who think nonplussed means nonchalant, even though the tide is against you.

Old people, did you know that the expression “Ugh!” now means something positive?

This year, I posted my annual list of words to ban over here. I know you will like it. But I’ve since come across a good list of awful new words I didn’t know about and here’s a few more for good measure:

stratcom
hive mind
wheelhouse
side hustle
highkey
clicktivist

Ew! Or as we used to say, Ugh.

On an excursion to downtown L.A., we came across this hipster outside a coffee house, reading Nausea.

It was like seeing a panda in its own habitat, only better.  I know it looks posed, but I swear to god he is real!

Downtown Los Angeles has a burgeoning ‘arts district’, i.e. a run-down industrial neighborhood crammed with organic cafes and tiny shops selling vintage Americana. Young people wander around looking drab and gender-challenged. There’s a lot of third-wave coffee and it is delicious.

While admiring my photo of the hipster this evening, I realized that it might be more accurate to call him a millennial.

I think there’s a real difference but I’m still working it out.

Hipsters like to have fun, for one thing, but millennials are sourpusses.

Millennials don’t want to acquire furniture or children, and they all work in tech or spend all their time on Instagram.

They are married to their iPhones and Androids and they seem to enjoy irony without actually having a sense of humor. They reject traditional politics but they hate Israel.

According to one pundit, they have ruined 47 institutions and industries. They don’t use napkins or eat cereal.

God, who needs them, right?

Reading an essay about  them tonight, I had to learn a new word: Precarity.

Precarity is a precarious existence, lacking in predictability, job security, material or psychological welfare. The social class defined by this condition has been termed the precariat.

Apparently, we should think of millennials as a generation forced to live pared-down lives, victims of the broken economy rather than brats who disdain their parents’ furniture.

And likewise, they’ve been given a bad rap by “self-hating Boomers.”

Hahahaha!

At least millennials have crated an awful new jargon full of terms like ‘toxic-masculinity’ and ‘virtue-signalling’. If they keep up the word-coinage, I may learn to like them!

Or at least forgive them.

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Seeing this photo of Mrs. Hulk Hogan with her new companion, I remembered a conversation with my friend Andy.   He’d been noticing a new trend of single older women dating men who were neither young   nor successful. They were men of their own age who didn’t have jobs or careers or anything much to bring to the table.

I didn’t like the sound of this trend.   But we needed a new term for this kind of man.   I am suggesting “Albatross.”   Does anyone like that?   One would say, for example, “Kathy Griffin is involved with an Albatross, now that she split up with Steve Wozniak.”