May
Word Porn: Reader Challenge
Welcome to Friday, and to the return of Word Porn!
Here at the QRW, I like to entertain. Educate. Stimulate. And most of all, I like to engage with you, my lovely readers. One of my loyal disciples, in addition to providing thoughtful and encouraging comments to many posts, surprised and enticed me with something special a few weeks ago: a challenge. See, Charlie is an avid fan of word porn. He, like me, loves the words, but he, like me, all too often reverts to the same tired expressions to express pleasure and enjoyment. With multisyllabic gems like those highlighted here in Word Porn, why oh why do we still insist on using “sweet,” “awesome,” and other once original but now worn out words?
So good old Charlie challenged me to expand our vocabulary. There’s got to be some better words out there, words that are fun to say, words that will impress our friends (or confuse them, same diff). Always ready for a challenge, I dedicate this week’s word porn to this task.
First up: “Awesome.” Used by surfer dudes and Midwestern gals alike, I use this word with astounding frequency. Then when the alcohol flows, as it did last night, in which I attended a happy hour for my boyfriend’s firm, then a late night trip to a karaoke bar, it pops out a ludicrous clip. What are some better, more Word-Porn-like options? And how could they be used in everyday speech, and drunken bar conversation?
Fancy Synonyms:
- Sublime: This means impressing the mind, inspiring awe or veneration. In a sentence? “Shit man, I got mad pool skills. We’re talking sublime. Let’s do this.”
- August: Inspiring awe or intimidation. “Dude, that guitar solo? Totally august.”
- Resplendent: Splendid, dazzling, magnificent. “I’m celebrating a cover story assignment. Freakin’ resplendent pay. A round of red-headed slut shots, please.”
Slangy Alternatives:
- Bitchin’: Duh. “I think I’m a great fit with your needs, Mr. Prospective Client. With my combination of experience and skills, I can provide you with truly appropriate and bitchin’ results.”
(Warning: Don’t try this one at home)
Next up: “Sweet.” I used this one a lot in my younger years, then it went away. A few months ago it resurfaced, without warning, and it threatens to replace nearly every word in my spoken vocabulary. Not sweet. And on evenings such as last night, “sweet” is usually a screamed utterance, with a few flashes of the devil horns. So what other options do we have?
Fancy Synonyms:
- Mellifluous: Smooth and sweet, flowing. “You’re going to karaoke to ‘Baby Got Back?’ Mellifluous!!”
- Winsome: Pleasing to the eye or mind. “No matter how much I’ve been drinking, I have still resisted the temptation to embarrass myself with a little Joan Jett karaoke. Winsome.”
- Dulcet: Pleasant to the eye or feelings. “Dulcet! We’re still rocking out at 1 am, and we have to work tomorrow! We’re gonna live for-evah!!! … I feel sick…”
Slangy Alternatives:
- Sweat: Chalk this up to some seriously confused high school classmates. In the annual rite of passing around yearbooks to get autographs/epithets/diatribes/LYAS markings, I would always be called “Sweet.” But misspelled. Now I’ve harnessed the inherent comedy of my poor spelling compadres, and used “Sweat” as a nice replacement. See how it works? “Trent Effing Reznor is gonna be at Lolla, man. Totally sweat.”
Well, that was totally sweet AND awesome. And more of a challenge than I anticipated. But very fun.
Now it’s your turn. What words do you overuse? And feel free to issue your own challenges.
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I’ll never forget the day I said “gnarly” in a conversation with two co-workers, one of whom was Irish and one of whom was a teenage girl. My Irish friend said “What’s gnarly mean?” And the teenage girl said “It’s sort of an old way of saying ‘cool,’ I guess.” The slang of my youth is now OLD.
May 2nd, 2008 at 6:41 pm@Elizabeth Oh man. That’s painful. I love “gnarly,” and recall vividly the inspired usage of the term in that quintessential classic of the 80s, “Goonies.” Oh Corey Feldman, before you were scary and weird.
May 2nd, 2008 at 9:20 pmOkay, you got me. Sublime is definitely on the cool list - refined, mysterious, and awesome to boot. Yes, I know I just used one of the words we’re trying to get away from, but if Webster can cross-define words, why can’t I?
Same goes for august and winsome. I can’t imagine myself being able to pull off mellifluous in an unprepped sentence - knowing the way my mouth works, I’d stutter or slur and then look like a real ass for a) trying to use a big word and b) totally botching it.
Sweat is also quite resplendent. Quick story: teenage coworkers have a knack for knicknaming each other, and I followed that tradition proudly. One guy got named Beefcake and liked it. In fact, he liked it so much that he used a Sharpie to write it on his favorite hat that he wore all the time. It took him a few days to recognize that we started to change the pronounciation of his nickname to Be-af-cake. Finally someone pointed out to him that he misspelled beef on his hat. Plastered, on his favored hat, for the rest of the summer, was BEAFCAKE. His reply: “I was thinking meat…and I did it when I was tired…(effers!…)”
August post, Amy. I’ll do some researching for alternatives to add to the list…
May 3rd, 2008 at 11:46 am@Charlie - Yay, the challenger dug it!
May 5th, 2008 at 11:41 amYou’ve not written anything that I haven’t dug, FWIW. But I also dug this one, too :p.
May 5th, 2008 at 1:16 pm