I have already complained about my trouble retrieving words, and about my senility, which is currently resulting in the escalating loss of jewelry and household objects. But here’s something new: Along with the loss of my vocabulary, is an increased sensitivity to word usage.

If this sounds contradictory, think again. The loss of my words makes existing words all the more potent. Or maybe it’s just an autistic sensory thing, like reacting to the seams in your socks. I’m trying to read a long essay about friendship in the Atlantic, but each misjudgement in the prose is killing me.

I can say misjudgement not out of pedantry ( is that the correct word??) but simply because my ear knows right from wrong. I can’t help it. It’s not an achievement, it’s just innate, like a sense of smell. It’s sprachgefühl.

I asked my husband, a musician, what it feels like to hear someone play the wrong note, but it turns out there are several kinds of wrong in music. Plus, he doesn’t “feel” things as acutely as I do, according to him. But he agreed that a singer who can’t follow a tune is exasperating.

I might not be able to know a wrong note from a hole in the ground, but I do know this: The following sentence is ruined by one single word.

Most of us have [Problem Friends] though we may wish we could tweeze them from our lives.

Right? The word tweeze right there is so awful. It makes you wince. Clearly the author chose that word deliberately but did she want us to wince? Why not just use expunge or expel? Even “jettison” would be better, although I hate that word and would be glad to forget it. Or if she’s trying to be funny, how about “defenestrate”?  Defenestrate is always funny, even when applied to actual defenestration!

So the essay has become a challenge, since I’m keenly interested in the subject of friendship, but the lapses in judgement are like potholes interrupting my flow. Was potholes good for you? Are you glad I said it was a challenge rather than calling it “problematic?” I could have said, “like nails on a chalkboard” but then I’d feel bad about myself.

You see how troublesome this shit is. Before I forget, I wanted to share a list of words I couldn’t retrieve in the last few weeks. My plan was to keep a comprehensive list and then try to compose haiku with them. But I keep forgetting to write them down, because senility. Here’s my list:

mariachi
linens
Napoleon Dynamite
rapport
attention
shingles
surface
hindrance
concierge
kangaroos
concierge
tsunami.

I wrote concierge twice because I keep forgetting it. I keep wanting to say “Courvoisier” even though I didn’t know what it was before googling it.

Getting back to the Atlantic essay, try this sentence:

But the lacuna in the literature is also a little odd.

God, what the fuck?? Lacuna, for fucksake? Why not just gap? I mean, I see that it’s an alliteration, but when an alliteration interrupts the idea being conveyed because it’s so stupid and uncalled for, why use it? When I used to read books and screenplays for a living, I remember having to read something by Danielle Steele. Her writing is so bad that I started screaming “editor!’ every few minutes. I guess that’s what makes a best seller.

Anyway, I plan to finish reading the essay and see if I can retrieve enough words to write my own essay on friendship, or rather the break-up of friendships, and how painful or liberating it can be. I am getting to be an expert on this. In the time of Covid, I’m finding I have no tolerance of craziness in my relations, despite being desperate for companionship. I use to quip that “I want to be the craziest person in a relationship” and this holds true more than ever. Or, if you prefer, “now more than ever.”

I’m pretty sure you people are too smart to waste your time on this awards show, but do not fear, I watched it for you! I missed the beginning with the Justin Bieber performance but it’s safe to say that it was embarrassingly awful.

When I started watching, a huge fat blonde woman was singing a duet with an older black guy. They were sitting down, probably because she was too out of shape to stand. Imagine my surprise when she turned out to be Katy Perry! What happened, I thought, is she still pregnant? I googled her, and she’s already had her baby with its stupid name.

After that, or at some point, that guy The Weekend performed his hit song with his whole face in bandages like an accident victim. I’ll bet there’s a reason but I’m too lazy to google it.

Megan Thee Stallion came out with some sexy dancers and lip synced a raunchy song about how much she loves her body. There is so much body to love, Megan! She is like a Mount Everest of a voluptuous woman. She is a fleshy giant who can twerk with a bored look on her face, which seems like a special talent. You can’t imagine the twerking, literally. I see why she’s a star: She is mesmerizing.

Poor J Lo was left to writhe around on the floor in a sheer leotard thing, FOR NOTHING! She was just an unfortunate also-ran, unable to muster any sex appeal due to the tragic amount of effort she puts out to make a buck. No J lo, please go back to the block.

What else? This guy Something Capaldi who has the most annoying radio hit of 2020 came out to bleat a different tortured heartbreak anthem. I forget what his hit is but you know it if you’ve ever been in a CVS. I saw that he was chubby and sad looking and it made me feel bad for hating him. I will just hate his voice, not HIM, going forward.

I think that Bad Bunny guy performed, or maybe he just won an award.

Billie Eilish performed and it was the usual with a couple of twists. Now that everyone has seen her large chest, she made sure it peeked out of her Kimono thing. She sang in an under-amplified voice and pranced around looking impressed with herself. When she fell backwards off a miniature stage, it was a nice little shock. Otherwise, I’m tired of her shtick now, are you? I want her to knock it off or go away.

A rapper called Doja Cat accepted an award by saying “wow” over and over then raising her arms in triumph as though she’d just won the Olympics. I really really hate her, having witnessed her lack of even a smidgen of talent on another stupid music awards show.

What do you think of smidgen? What would be a better word? I’m pretty stoned so I’m blanking out. A soupcon? An iota? A shred?

Anyway, to sum up, Megan -1, everyone else – negative 100.

I’m just going to jump in with Adam Driver.

I know he’s not the world’s biggest threat or even irritant, but I’ve been wanting to complain about him for ages.

First off, I find it hard to remember if his name is Driver or Diver. I just had to google it. I’m sick of being corrected when I say the wrong one. Second, why is he so popular? Isn’t he a guy from the Girls TV series? Why is now the leading man in so many movies?

He is too tall and his voice is annoying. It sounds like he’s speaking through a Muppet costume. He is both too much and too little. His performance in that movie about Marriage is excruciating. I just don’t want him. Is he somehow an appendage of Adam Sandler, who I obviously also hate?

Here’s my next  choice and I don’t know if there’s an actual term for this. It’s the Instagram girl with a zillion followers who appears to offer nothing more than an array of plastic surgery and cosmetic debacles. Huge boobs, gigantic lips, voluminous hair extensions, pounds of make-up, long pointy nails and fake eyelashes. What are these girls for?? I can’t tell them apart except for the two categories of hair color. The brunettes are usually exotic/ethnic looking and the blondes look like generic porn actresses.

Speaking of Instagram, I’m also sick of the positivity posts. They’re all like,

“I’ve worked so hard the last year and there have been pitfalls along the way but I’m learning to love myself more and I’m so grateful to god for bla bla bla and I know my path is bla bla bla.”

Who gives a shit? Can’t they save this for their shrink or life coach or BFF? It’s so faux-spiritual and pointless. Do they think that social media is a cheering section for them personally? I don’t even get it but make it stop.

I would like to stop seeing the term gut-health. Nothing about gut or guts. Nothing about prebiotics or inflammation. People should only discuss their digestive system with close friends and medical experts.

As a human being and a female, I don’t need to read about how women are powerful, with a list of this year’s Most Powerful or a list of women’s accomplishments. Women make up half of the world’s population so stop trying to position them as a rare population. I mean, Jesus Christ.

I don’t want any more think pieces about tribalism. We get it already!

I don’t want to hear about your best life. I don’t want to hear about optimizing anything. I don’t want to hear about micro-dosing. I DO want to hear about which strains of weed are the best for creativity or relaxing, so hit me up if you know.

I hate myself for writing “hit me up.” So many of our trendy expressions are contagious! I now say the word “ew” with two distinct syllables, “ew-uh.” But I will never, ever, describe something good as “fire.” Ew-uh!

I’m through with tracking the latest Twitter beefs. It’s exhausting. And when I try to tell someone, “guess who everybody’s mad at on Twitter!” no one wants to know.

Obviously I’m through with wellness and self-care. Everyone needs to redirect themselves to care for OTHERS! We already care far too much about our own selves. Trust advertising to persuade us that we’ve been neglecting ourselves. It’s the greatest ruse since “rinse, repeat.”

I’m planning a list of banned words for 2020, to publish at Miista. Feel free to share yours, as well as shit you don’t want any more of. Extra points if you can explain why we have Adam Driver.

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 .

Has everyone heard about toska, a Russian word for a type of misery with no English equivalent? It’s one of those words that make language nerds feel superior, sort of like how “schadenfreude” makes dumb people feel when they hear it on TV and congratulate themselves for knowing it.

People seem to revel in the nebulous kind of misery that toska defines. It’s so uniquely Russian, according to some. Here’s how Nobokov describes it:

“No single word in English renders all the shades of toska. At its deepest and most painful, it is a sensation of great spiritual anguish, often without any specific cause. At less morbid levels it is a dull ache of the soul, a longing with nothing to long for, a sick pining, a vague restlessness, mental throes, yearning. In particular cases it may be the desire for somebody of something specific, nostalgia, love-sickness. At the lowest level it grades into ennui, boredom.”

Now I’m no Russian but some of my  ancestors were. And I experience toska all the time. I think that “miserable,” in the Morrissey sense of miserable, covers all those nuances perfectly well.

When we were teenagers, we used to call this feeling The Pain of Existence, facetiously but sincerely at the same time. What’s the word for THAT, wordists?

Here’s a ridiculous chart someone made while expounding on the ineffableness of the word toska.

Someone else says that Americans are too emotion-averse to experience toska, or to admit feeling it even if they could. I disagree, obviously. It probably depends on your particular social circle. I wouldn’t even want to be friends with anyone who didn’t suffer from  existential malaise or depression at least some of the time.

What do you guys think? Is toska overrated? Is it as good as weltschmerz? What words would you like to hear more of?

It’s fitting that toska reminds me of Tosca, the opera, because my mother loved Puccini and went around the house singing arias. As much as my sister and I begged her to shut up, she persisted. She actually had a beautiful voice. And god knows she was miserable.

Here, enjoy Maria Callas, who exemplifies misery at it’s most exquisitely miserable.

Watching the news about the Inspector General’s report on the FBI, and Hillary Clinton’s three word tweet in response to it, I was startled by the commentator’s summation.

“Still bitter, he said, shaking his head reproachfully. Everyone on the panel agreed.

STILL??? After the ordeal of the craziest, most obscene presidential election in history, being threatened by stadiums full of slobbering racists screaming LOCK HER UP, what should Hillary Clinton feel? How long is she allowed to feel bitter, if at all? Maybe she was bitter even before the election. Maybe she was born bitter. Bitch.

Why can’t she be more gracious about everything? Why can’t she let it go? In fact, why does she need to tweet at all? It’s so bitter of her. She should just shut up, as many have said, over and over and over.

I am no Hillary apologist but I voted for her, wholeheartedly. Because I’m not crazy.

The use of the word bitter as a pejorative has always fascinated me. It implies an aspect of judgement and condemnation, in a way that “resentful” or “angry” does not. There’s a finger-waggingness to “bitter,” like “God, just get over it, you loser”. With Hillary, of course, the contempt is move overt.

I asked some friends if they thought that bitter is a word more often applied to women than men. No one thought so. But when I googled the definition of bitter, here’s the first one that came up:

See the phrase they used for 2. ?

Ha! I rest my fucking case.

A bitter woman is the worst thing on earth. She’s like a dreaded woman “with baggage,” only worse. She should be shunned. A bitter man probably has a damn good reason for his feelings. Maybe his wife ran off with the milkman.

A bitter woman is just damaged goods.

Imagine an essay on how to spot a bitter man in his 30s!

I read a study that said  25% of people report having felt bitter at some time in their lives. I’m going to say that this is preposterous, and only shows how bitterness has become the most shaming emotion, more shaming probably than feeling homicidal. I’m proud to say that I feel both. Not all the time but at least once a day.

I wrote about bitterness as a disorder here. What a good writer I was back then! I can honestly say I feel bitter about losing my abilities, along with my youth. But that’s okay. Lil’ Spiteful has always been my imaginary gang name, because Lil’ Bitterness isn’t as cute.

Thoughts, arguments, bitter rebukes, anyone?

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.

Poor Tragic Fashion boy!

I came across this picture and it brought back a whole era – the era in my life when blogging and fashion were exciting and full of adventure. I was genuinely fascinated by characters like Sea of Shoes and Tragic Fashion Boy.

Now, life has lost its luster, and my priorities have certainly changed. But it makes me sad to see these photos of Charles Guislain, who is now around 20, and still the object of male lust on various websites. God only knows what he has experienced in the last few years.

I see he is working as a photographer. I hope he’s happy with his choices. I hope he’s decided to eat more.

Oddly enough, today someone reminded me about Daphne Guinness, another character I once found interesting. In a new interview, she revealed that she dresses “intuitively.”

I don’t care about her any more but I still love words. What does she mean by dressing intuitively? Is it possible to dress oneself counter-intuitively?

Let me know what you think.

Godwin’s law (also known as  Godwin’s Rule of Nazi Analogies or  Godwin’s Law of Nazi Analogies) is a humorous observation made by  Mike Godwin in 1990 that has become an  Internet adage. It states: “As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler  approaches   100% .”  In other words, Godwin put forth the hyperbolic observation that, given enough time, in  any online discussion–regardless of topic or scope–someone inevitably criticizes some point made in the discussion by comparing it to beliefs held by Hitler and the Nazis. –   Wikipedia

~

I love this. This is the type of discovery that brings joy to my heart.

The definition continues:

Godwin’s law is often cited in online discussions as a deterrent against the use of arguments in the widespread  Reductio ad Hitlerum form.   – Wikipedia

“Reductio ad Hitlerum” ?!?!

I fucking love language.   In fact, I made up a good word the other day:   Whateverism.   It’s the modern malaise, basically, and I’m against it.   Please feel free to bandy this word about, if you’re not comfortable with Reductio ad Hitlerum.