Fake Words and Small Children With Crackberries

Fake Words that I Love:

1). Craptacular.

2). Craptastic (actually you can put "crap" in front of almost -- and I use almost very loosely -- any suffix and get a decent word out of it).

3). Boobtacular (used most often on Television Without Pity, during recaps of Rock of Love).

4). Bootylicious.

5). Meh. Arguably, this is a real word, used to replicate the noise one makes when something makes them feel... meh.

6). Asshat.

Fake Words I Hate:

1). Coverages. Really, this is just a misuse of "coverage" by the insurance industry; a lot of stupid people work in insurance, and they have all spent the last 10 years popularizing their sad attempt to turn "coverage" into a plural, apparently not realizing that "coverage" is the plural of "coverage." What's most disturbing to me is that a large maker of insurance agency management software is now using the word "coverages" in its software. I can't even begin to tell you how this drives me up a wall.

2). OMG, when spoken. I really hope the trend of actually vocalizing netspeak is not something that catches on. I'll die if either of my parents ever says, "LOL" in the midst of conversation. "Squee" is another internet fangirl word which should never, ever be uttered in real life.

3). Fucktard. This is just a way to pretend you're not really calling someone a retard, when in fact you really are calling them not just a retard, but a fucking retard. Calling people retards to mock them went out of vogue in the early 1980s. I'm not really convinced it's something we should bring back.

*****

A little while ago my best friend came by with her two daughters, Kira and Julia, to deliver Girl Scout Cookies to several people in my office. And I can't help it -- I continue to picture Kira in my head as a 6-year-old little girl, even with her clearly 12-year-old visage and personality staring me right in the face. So imagine my complete and utter amusement when we were all sitting here talking about my wedding plans and I was confirming with her that she'd like to be a junior bridesmaid or something like that, and she whipped out her cell phone and checked her calendar to make sure she had the wedding date free. She would fit right in at my office with all the crackberry addicts.

I kind of pride myself on not owning a phone that does everything. I enjoy feeling sort of Luddite in that I have a cell phone and an iPod and a camera and a Nintendo DS and a computer and a television and a paper calendar, and have no desire to combine them. Ever. I mean, I can't even imagine a scenario in which I would want to check emails while wandering the grocery store aisles, or upload photos to my blog in the middle of my vacation, or catch the newest episode of Lost during round 5 of the pub quiz (unless round 5 was regarding Lost and I was a pub quiz cheater).

But I am guessing that Kira will be one of the first to volunteer to just have all that info downloaded into a chip inserted behind her ear.