Friday, January 8, 2010

2 Stupids and a Few Cutes

This is something that I really hate. It makes me nuts. Encrazed, if you will. Like someone has hooked a chain under my skin and is dragging it down my spine. Like someone is tap dancing on my temples. Like grinding sharp gravel into the armpits.

I was at an eye doctor appointment the other day, and I could overhear a conversation between an eyewear sales woman and her customers. Now, I go to the cheapest eye doctor in town because I have no insurance. I take a risk with that, and walked around for a year with an inaccurate prescription in one eye from them. But whatever, I have two eyes so it worked out. Anyhow, folks come down from all over the woods to go to the cheap eye clinic here. The kind of folks who go to town once a year for their supplies. Need a new pan to fry up the squirrel for dinner, for example.

The sales woman is speaking to an elderly couple, who seem to have lived a hard life if appearances can be counted on in these matters. They were discussing broken glasses, their repair policy, possible extra insurance etc. I was really just paying attention to how I looked in funky striped black and white glasses with purple sides at the time, but I heard the sales woman loud and clear. Because she was being loud. She told the couple this: "you need to understand that we are not reliable if something happens to your lenses, I just want to be sure you know, that we can't be reliable, not that we will break them or anything but you know, just in case".

SCREEEEEEEECH

I HATE that. I HATE, DESPISE AND LOATHE when people try to use "big" words that they don't know, to make themselves sound official or important or smarter than you. It makes me crazy. Encrazed. Just use a word you know. Okay, liable is not a huge word, but evidently it is bigger than the sales woman. It seems to be a trend because I hear it a lot. People figure if they sound close to the word it must be good enough.

I was trying to think of another example for this post while watching Judge Judy this afternoon. I love my Judge Judy! Two women were arguing their points to Judge Judy, and one begins talking about their verbal contract. She says, "we were in agreeance on this. We talked about it and decided, so we had an agreeance".
UGRRRRRRRRRR!!!

See how I have so little in my life that I can fuss up about stuff like this?

Now for the cute. I was talking to Teena and she pointed at my upper lip and said, "that's your nachos". I was like, my what? Nachos, she says. Nachos, right there, as she points and jabs her grubby little finger on my upper lip. What on earth could she be talking about I wondered? Does she mean chips? Like from a restaurant? No, she tells me, it sounds the same but that is not chips. Right, that's what I thought too. So I am thinking she meant the philtral ridge, which is the groove between the nose and the lip. But what would possess a 4 year old to start a conversation on that topic? And why would she think the lines are called nachos?

That was a few days ago, earlier in the week. Then yesterday I realized what she was saying. See, my brain works like a snapped rubber band sometimes. Just.... BAM! BING! CLOMP! and out of nowhere I got it. Nostrils. She thought she was saying nostrils, but she was saying nachos. She was pointing and prodding at my lip because she did not want to stick her fingers actually in my nose. Not for lack of interest or desire on her part, but because I have yelled at her many a time for that.

Genea has a few of those, but much less now that she has gotten older. She is at that age where when we imitate something cute she said as a toddler, she corrects us. She used to call chap stick lip- balm type of stuff "lipsocks". No one knows where she came up with that, but I have called all chap sticks "lipsocks" ever since. Now, Genea corrects me. Do you mean lipstick? She will counter, when I tell her to go put on her lipsocks. Call it whatever, just put it on! Ever since she started first grade, she is suddenly the grammar police. Genea, I tell her, go put this in the "grabage". Do you mean garbage? No, I say, I mean what I said!

Okay so to summarize, it is stupid when adults are abusive to big words that they don't understand. When toddlers do it, it's cute. Really cute, and funny too. Today Teena told me it was "blustery" outside. It is snowing, windy and freaking cold. Good job Teena, it IS blustery outside today!

Yeah, um, I'm pretty sure "encrazed" isn't actually a word. That's what makes it so damn funny.

18 comments:

  1. Mine is height-th. As in width, depth and height-th. Drives me mental. I have heard contractors say it! GAH! heighT heightT heightT people.

    ps. were are sometimes very "dardastic" in our house. the first weekend French Fry was with us she called me out on something saying that I was just being "darastic"

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  2. Mine is using ideal instead of idea. Seriously there a lot of people here who say that and it IS fingernails scaping down a blackboard to my ears. AAAAHHHH!

    Correct use of blustery.....Rock on Teena!

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  3. Encrazed sounds so sophisticated. May need to add this to my vocab.

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  4. Teach her what a philtrum is. It will completely blow her away.
    And yes, I am exasperated and frightened in equal measure by how stupid some salespeople/technicians are. I usually point it out nicely, although as a former copy editor I can be a bit of a language bitch, when I encounter someone who persists in misusing a word.
    The response is usually a look of intense concentration similar to the one my standard poodle has when she's trying to communicate telepathically that she's like a pice of my steak followed by "Ohhh, yeah."
    I lay the blame on a lack of interest in reading and a distressing casualness toward language brought about by texting. Or maybe the fault lies with the whole self esteem movement and the no child left behind policy. Whatever it is, it annoys me no end.

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  5. Ok! I saw that same Judge Judy and noted to self how I had just witnessed the birth of a new word and made an agreeance that I would NOT be using that word! LOL

    Peace

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  6. "You welcome" is one of my most loathed. Somehow, while I was out of the country, the 're was dropped from sooooo many people's polite response to being thanked.

    Please, I beg you, pick that 're up off the floor, dust it off and use it! If not, stick it up your nacho.

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  7. ugh, that IS annoying...it's like "nook-YOU-ler" instead of "nuclear" to me. i can't stand that!

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  8. If encrazed is not a word it should be, good one!

    I have a cute one. Miss M still calls hand sanitizer "handsatizer". How stinkin cute is that!

    BTW make sure to keep your nachos clean in all that cold weather!

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  9. It flustrates me to no end when people do stuff like that.

    (And yes, I know flustrates isn't really a word. A lot of people I know think it is though, and not just when they're flustered.)

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  10. Oh, my gosh I'm having fun reading this! I haven't even FINISHED IT YET, for heaven's sake!, and I'm commenting because I am just loving the way you write!

    OK - after I wrote that much, I started laughing totally out loud at the "nachos"...tears, actual tears.

    Yes; our family has some of those "wrong-is-right-if-we-say-it words". "Napcots" for napkins (sounds so Elizabethan, don't you think?) is one.

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  11. I think that the saleswoman saying they couldn't be "reliable" was probably simple statement of truth.

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  12. Yes - funny isn't it how we tend to start using the cute words/phrases our kids say and continue to use them (and embarrass them!!) long after they have copped on to the right way...

    From my eldest daughter, now almost 14 we still ask to pass the 'ramble- aid' (marmalade)...
    Elena told me one day that if I did something for her (there's always a catch)then I could sit down and 'el-rax'(relax) with a 'Maza-geen'!!

    She tends to do a lot of 'backing talksways'!!?' and when we order a pizza she always calls the place 'U-mero Nu-mo' instead of Numero Uno...

    There are others also.....I never bother to correct her... just start to use them myself!!!

    Regards
    Adrienne

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  13. I expecially like when they use the correct word incorrectly. Like when they order an expresso, I like that.

    Although my daughter wants to go to Kevin when she dies. That's real cute.

    NO, really. People, REALLY.

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  14. I often substitute words that start with the same letter or have similar sounds because I have a problem. I don't know what it is but I'm sure it's all MENTAL. lol I sort of have these episodes where I know what word I want to use but it won't come out, so I use a different word, and rely on the other person to correct me.

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  15. Defiantly. That one drives me nuts.

    I know a woman who teaches elementary school and is constantly expressing her defiance when she wants to communicate certainty.

    "I will defiantly be there."

    Well, honey, if you're going to be defiant, we don't want you there!

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  16. Oh brother - some people!

    Meanwhile, I definatly love your blog and look forward to reading more ;)

    ~Maven from A Fabulously Good Life

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  17. I LOVE "encrazed." I'm totally going to start using that!

    Clicked over from your comment @ Hip Moms' Guide, 'cause I'm sort of your neighbor. By, like 40 miles.

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  18. I love all the little things other people take over from their kids!

    De- that is a little nuts that we both watched the same episode of Judge Judy, especially since you are in Canadia!

    Mayberry, there is a good chance you know exactly the store I am speaking of!

    Defiantly flustrating, I will go read a mazageen article about the idea heigth of a napcot after I use some nucueler handsatizer. You welcome. I think.

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