December 9, 2008

Terms on the other side of their half-life

Now, this is going to be a continually updated post, so don't let the original post-date fool you into thinking it's dated...

Catch-phrases, terminology, and slang terms that have, in essence, 'Jumped the Shark' (the non-specific criteria for making this list is as follows: If the word or phrase makes me think that this is said way too much by way too many people in a verbal catch-all, then it's use is self-defeating -- by the way, that's not to say I don't find myself using all of these terms too... I just wish I didn't):

- At the end of the day... I used to like this one for a new way of saying 'After all is said and done', until it was said 14 times during an 11 minute conversation with a former boss.

- Jumped the shark (See? I told you I use these) this was more hip when not everyone knew what it meant... say, circa 1981, when some cable boxes were actually boxes that had a dial that you had to manually (the horror!) turn to one of the hundred or so channels -- which, incidently, is also the equivalent of my walking through the snow to school both ways for my kids: "When I was your age, I had to get up and change my own channels!".

- Bee-och Ummmm... no. Just no.

- Media Whore Seems to me the people who call someone this term are scouring all media for the current flavor of the day and when someone keeps popping up they are this (wait, that sounds uncomfortable familiar... oh well). As a term, it should've died when the X-Files was cancelled.

- Crackberry Term is actually not quite at its half-life yet, but it's fast approaching its own event horizon. I find it somewhat inversely proportional to saying 'text me', but not totally.

- 'Roid Rage Thankfully, this is reaching it's own end... seems to have died down ever since Clemen's curious press conferences following the Mitchell Report

- Wing Nut & Moon Bat Often used (at least in these parts) to decribe political leanings to the far right and extreme left, respectively. So old and stale they now sound almost mainstream for a term that is used to describe the fringe.

- Google it Another that hasn't lost it's touch yet -- I'm giving it halfway through Obama's first term though...

- ... degrees to Kevin Bacon Because I think I'm pretty good at doing this, my sense is that this is something I should not actually bring up in conversation and, as such, is somewhat self-defining for this list ;).

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I was watching Boston Leagle's final episode last night, and they did something so recockulous that the show's charecter's even made a mention to "Jumping the shark". I thought that was hilarious.

Anonymous said...

I see Re-Cock-ulous in the previous post. An excellent replacement for Re-Dick-ulous.
I believe that this is a word on the rise for sure.