A lot of people will really lose their minds when you describe something nuclear as “nookyoolar.” Sometimes it bugs me– like when the speaker actually owns and operates nookyoolar weapons– but that’s one I’m usually able to get past.
My dad and I get together sometimes after work to grab a bite and gab like two old men at a bar. Sometimes, I will be at these dinners with my father and (only after provocation) launch into a lengthy monologue challenging his political or religious misconceptions using the most cogent and devastating language in my arsenal. After I finish these philosophical Sherman’s Marches and stop to breathe, proud of the way I have just blown an old man’s mind, my father always says the same thing: “You said ‘umm’ or ‘uhh’ somewhere between 21 and 23 times.” Sometimes, to turn this into a complete body slam, he will pause first just long enough to give me the fleeting hope that he was listening to me at all.
I’m not bothered by “umm.” In fact, I think people who “umm” are brilliant. They only have to do that because they think so deeply when they talk that their mouths lose synch.
There is one that drives me cuckoo-go-nutty, though, one that I’ve never heard anyone else discuss.
People of earth: when you are speaking and use a gerund, the “-ing” is pronounced “-ing.” It’s not “-een.” It’s f***ing “-ing.”
I find this speech tic to be the conversational equivalent of that intractable piece of popcorn kernel stuck between your tooth and gum; when I’m trying to listen to an -eener, I find it impossible to think about anything else.
“Hey, I’ve been lookeen for you. Where are you goeen? Are you headeen over to the meeteen?” “Oh, no. The meeteen was cancelled, so I’m going to the meeting.”
Bright, articulate people speak this way. (I think they’re bright and articulate; I’ve never heard a word they’ve said.) They say “swing”; they say “thing”; they say “writeen.” It’s an unsung epidemic.
October 19th, 2006 at 8:51 am
Damn Jim, your goin’ to blow a gasket… don’t want you to be gettin’ some sort of blown-up blood vessel in your head… but that’s a whole nother story.
October 19th, 2006 at 12:33 pm
“A whole nother”! Good times.
I have no beef with the ranchin’, ropin’ rough riders who drop a ‘g’ from time to time. There’s a time and place for that; there’s a world for those folks. You can get advanced degrees and read voraciously, but sometimes you need to be someone who says “rasslin’.” The situation demands “ain’t,” or “sayin’,” or “folks.”
The -eeners are a whole nother matter. Listen to Bob Woodward or the doctor on Star Trek: The Next Generation for a few minutes, and you’ll quicky see what I mean. (Woodward also refers to himself as a rahporter, but that’s more bewildering than anything else.)
October 19th, 2006 at 2:40 pm
So, they say -een, like the end of the word, bean? That would be weird, I don’t know if anyone in my neck of the woods does that. However, they will often call a bag a “beg” and insist that it is “duck-duck-grey duck” instead of “duck-duck goose.”
October 19th, 2006 at 2:46 pm
Now there’s a game I’d like to play: duck-duck-Grey Goose.
October 19th, 2006 at 10:19 pm
“Duck-duck-Grey Goose”: not enough people speak out against the dangers of nursery school hazing.
Oh yes, they do. And they are everywhere. Katie Couric does it, though her -eens don’t smack you in the wordmaker as hard as Dr. Crusher’s.
…Hey, the Cardinals may well be going to the World Series. Huh!
October 20th, 2006 at 9:31 am
Wooo!!! Go Cardinals!!!! It is a win-win situation. My old home town team makes it and New Yorkers get dejected. Now, if only we could get state governments to stop subsidizing professional sports franchises.