My mother-in-law was fond of language. She showed this by editing her copy of the New
Yorker magazine with red pen; she also edited letters from her daughter-in-law
and granddaughters, lesser stuff, with red pen.
When she heard people use new words and constructions she would huff. I said at these times “Oh, come on, Virgina! –
vox populi! – vox populi!”
My arteries now must be as hard as hers were then. I cringe these days at many new words and
to heck with vox populi! I call the
worst of these words cockroach words.
The most disgusting word to me is gift used as a verb. It is so
ugly. Gifted kills the music and joy of gave, and giving, It sounds so smug, so pretentious. Consider the folk song “I gifted my love a cherry that had no stone;
I gifted my love a chicken that had
no bone . . .” The season of gifting is galloping toward us and I
intend to stick my fingers in my ears until it’s over.
Signage
makes my cockroach-detecting antennae quiver.
Why doesn’t anyone talk about signs anymore?
Ox complains about perfectly good records being renamed track records. I admit that my cockroach antennae hadn’t
even twitched at track records until he pointed them out.
Should you accept it, dear reader, your job is to stamp
out cockroach words, I know you have your own list. If I use one of your cockroaches, let me know and I’ll
step on it.
