Wednesday, October 31, 2007

Something stupid this way comes

Loyal readers of this blog (both of them) are likely familiar with my hatred for stupid neologisms. In these "pages," I have previously excoriated The New York Times Magazine's use, in an otherwise fine profile of the band The Arcade Fire, of the word "ginormous." It has come to my attention that another terrible word is upon us: vajayjay. Apparently this word is being pushed/popularized by Oprah, after being used on Grey's Anatomy (though of course the word predates the show). I learned of the plague-like spreading of this awful word via The Onion A.V. Club's blog The Hater, which is written by Amelie Gillette. (Also, isn't that a great name? Nothing like a nom that conjures both a cute Frenchwoman and shaving.) In the entry in question, Ms. Gillette introduces us to the word vajayjay, "aka the world's most annoying word popularized by the world's most annoying popularizer of annoying things, Oprah." Well said.

I'd just like to go on record here and say that I am sick and tired of the infantilizing of everything. Ginormous is a word a teenager says. Vajayjay is a word a toddler says, or a toddler's mommy says to her (or, I suppose, him, though I can't imagine why). Similarly, men are not to wear shorts unless at the beach or engaged in some vigorous outdoor activity; enough with the T-shirts sporting clever sayings or kitschy nostalgia, like Mr. Bubble—in fact, enough with T-shirts, unless they are of the plain white variety, altogether. All these words the people who write Gawker use: douchebag, asshat, and the like are what junior-high students call one another. So fucking knock it off already. Wear your pants like a man, your skirt (or pants or dress or whatever, I don't care, I'm not trying to start a thing here) like a woman, say "fuck" when you want to, and lay off the childish euphemisms for your naughty bits. Let's start to elevate the discourse by—oh, I dunno—elevating the fucking discourse.

4 comments:

Jake Freedom said...

Kewl ideaz man. You F-ing RAWK!!!

TTYL! :)

Joe said...

I'm gonna have to disagree with you on a couple of those points there pal. Arkansas is hot in the summer and shorts are appropriate when at home or around town. Douchebag is a good name to call someone that you don't particularly hate but you still need a strong descriptive term for them.

However, I echo your sentiments on the t-shirts bearing the logos of the Thundercats, GI Joe, Voltron, and the like. I also hate that Oprah has a commanding...well, command of middle aged women's vocabulary

Hunter R. Slaton said...

Joe: I feel your pain RE: the shorts thing. But sacrifices must be made. As for douchebag, you're right, it used to be a good name to call someone, but no longer, thanks to the people at Gawker. (Granted, you're not familiar with the hyper-overuse of the phrase here in the city.)

Tom said...

While I agree with several of the points you made in this entry; particularly the infantalizing of American culture which I find extremely odious and symptomatic of a much wider and more dangerous trend in this culture which is the ever eroding state of our personal freedom, the popularized dumbing down of the language of shakspeare smacks of an orwellian newspeak experiment. However your comments about shorts make you sound like granpa yelling at those damn kids to get off of his lawn.