this time of year always brings me back to two words that have so completely been flipped in their respective meanings by a large part of our society...you hear them correctly used in christmas carols, yet in today's culture they cause pause or giggles...
terrific and gay...
i know, sounds like the name of a particularly interesting blog, but i don't mean them together...
not that they can't or aren't used together, just for the purposes of this post i use them separately as examples of the same problem...
but, i defensively politically correctly digress...
the issue is their original definitions and usage, and how they are defined and used today...
take for instance terrific...the original and continued definition of
terrific adj. very bad
terrific means very bad...sure there are other definitions that suggest otherwise and its colloquial usage suggests otherwise but it is there in black and white that it means very bad!...the first definition...it is a derivitive of terrificus (latin) meaning frightful...
so when you hear
"gee the traffic is terrific" in song, it really means "good lord look at that traffic jam we'll never get there why in the hell do we go through this every goddamned year JUST to get to your mother's house and endure your awful relatives and the horrible food and your boozy grabby aunts! this is just TERRIFIC!! TERRIFIC i tell ya!!"
now gay...we all know what gay means...but the original definition is
gay adj. happily excited; merry
it isn't even until the 4th definition or so that homosexual is attached to gay...but there are hints and whispers round about the third definition when we get "given to social pleasure; licentious" (which is a REALLY great word...you should look it up)
so when we are told "don we now our gay apparel" we must imagine a bunch of people festively dressed for a night of holiday merriment...standard christmas lingo and nothing more...
though i'd really like to know what don is wearing...he he ho ho ho...
now that that's out of my little "box of slightly annoying yet completely irrelevant thoughts" i can move on...
word of the week!
a new installment i bring to you...i say "week" but in my own little world that really doesn't mean anything as far as an *actual* time frame when you can reasonably count on seeing it...
anyway...
word of the week is dedicated to the lord of the ring's mother, the artist formally known as many different things but is currently known as damma dinny...
now t.a.f.k.a.m.d.t.b.i.c.k.a. damma dinny used a word last night in conversation that makes me remember why it is i love language so much...
in the context of a conversation about this country's health care crisis, t.a.f.k.a.m.d.t.b.i.c.k.a. damma dinny used the word
jive ass
okay so it's two words...but really? jive ass?...is that not one of the ALL TIME GREATEST words in the history of words!?!... and i haven't heard it in so long it's like meeting up with a long lost friend for a couple of beers!...i LOVE this word!! (okay, these words)
jive ass...i could say it all day, i really could...and as a prize, to no one but myself really, for winning word of the week i commit to using jive ass in conversation for the next bit of time AS MUCH AS HUMANLY POSSIBLE!!!
i should be very interesting to talk with for about the next week or so...though christmas is coming up and there is an audience I MEAN GATHERING so i may have to extend the time frame of the prize for a bit longer...
it's like a christmas gift that keeps on giving...
i haven't abandoned $1 menu tao but sadly i am out of time for today...
i wonder if you'd find jive ass in the tao te ching?
you know it's in the bible though!...but i think it's pronounced differently...hmmm, i'll have to ask mel gibson about that...
x.
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