It’s been awhile since I’ve done this. Well over a year ago, in fact. Here’s part one and part two of my annoying words series, if you’re interested.
I guess I’ve needed a while to soak in the culture, mostly internet culture, and determine what words and phrases grate on my word bones, whatever that means.
Today’s batch might not be as recognizable as my previous two posts, but just sayin’. And, yes, I know that two of these aren’t actually words—they’re phrases—but whatevs. That’s just how I roll.
My jam.
“The new Daft Punk is my jam.”
The above example is the verbal equivalent of skinny jeans. Ten years from now, you’ll look back on that statement—which, by the way, was one out of every five tweets a couple of months ago—and wonder how you became the most generic person of Summer 2013.
Not only do you approve of two guys playing electronic music in Halo helmets, but you also called them “my jam.” My jam.
YOLO.
“Threw an aluminum can into the trash. It was RIGHT NEXT TO the recycling bin. #YOLO”
This one is so horribly obvious that I feel stupid even mention it as annoying. Of course, it’s annoying. All of us know this except for the poor, young souls who still say it. And God bless your heart if you have this as a tattoo. Sadly, there’s a 40 year old out there somewhere who has “Ice, Ice Baby” tattooed to his lower back.
Has any catch phrase from a rap song—or any song for that matter—that spread to the general public ever been anything but annoying? Somewhere in the world there’s a giant culture dump full of trendy words from summers past, and YOLO will hopefully be sitting right on the top soon.
Amazeballs.
“Did you watch Sharknado last night? It was amazeballs!”
Did you really mean to say that? Or did you just vomit words? Amazeballs is the equally annoying and closely related cousin of “awesome sauce.” If these two cousins sleep together, they’ll likely conceive the word “awesomeballs” as some new, genetically-flawed meme and then we’re all screwed.
So if you ever hear me say this word, just assume I’ve given up on life.
That is all.
“I like waffles. That is all.”
But is that really all? And, if it indeed really is all, then why not just say “I like waffles.” I get it. I know it’s a trendy online meme to say “that is all,” but it’s redundant. You know how I know it would really be “all?” If you just said “I like waffles.” Then it really would be all.
Now I’m just confused, and I really have no idea what I’m saying. And that is all.
Totes.
“The mall at lunchtime is totes cray.”
No. Do not say that. Do not write that. Do not think that. Simply writing that example sentence makes my head twitch, resulting in some kind of inner ear imbalance that brings pain to my brain parts. ”Totes” has been around here before. If you’re not familiar: Totes=totally. Cray=Crazy.
To counter the words “totes” and the like, I propose Dr. Evil style trap doors that, with the push of a button, open to an underground pit filled with ravenous orcs holding pitchforks enflamed in blue fire.
Selfie.
“My bestie took a selfie on Instagram.”
The word “selfie” makes me shiver. I’m an old fart, I know. So I won’t go into a philosophical diatribe over the implications of a world in which, according to one poll, 30% of all photos taken by people age 18-24 are “selfies.” I just want to talk about the word itself: selfie.
Any word that ends in “ie” or “ey” becomes ten times more annoying. Try it out on the above words: totesy, amazeballsy, The jammy. Think about these phrasings. “I lovey my wifey. I sweaty while I play footballey. Your toesies smell bad.” Are you angry now? Are you annoyed? Well, you should be.
Swag.
“Lebron’s got swag tonight.” Or alternatively, “Pick up your conference swag at the front desk.”
Two meanings here. One is short for swagger. The other essentially means gifts in the form of promotional material. I find them equally annoying. I mean, didn’t Vanilla Ice use the term “swag” back in the early 90s, or am I just imagining that? And I never watched Jersey Shore, but I imagine those guys using the words “swag” quite often. Now I’m just stereotyping.
But my guess is that the amount of times someone uses the word swag is directly proportionate to the amount of hair gel they wear.
Look, this is all my opinion, and it’s all in fun. So don’t get too worked up if you’re into these words.
And if you use these words, we can still be friends. But you might want to watch your step for those Dr. Evil style trap doors. Those orcs are nasty.
