Truthiness and other stupid words

That's what I said, made-up, imaginary, stupid words.
What is truthiness, anyway? The state of being truthy? Who thought that up?* Are you stupid or just want to seem that way to 99% of the English-speaking world? It sounds, to me, like some damn-fool teenager decided that was a great addition to the Urban Idiots' Lexicon, right next to "pimp my [insert your favorite phrase/author/vehicle/webpage/food/squirrel]." It's for (in the words of a, well, yeah, guy) "people who express them selfs." Somehow, they does. Sho'nuff. (that guy is a denizen of a social networking site. I make every effort to stay away from people that put that sort of stuff out for anyone to see. It's the 8th grade English teacher coming out in me.)

Then there is inflammable. The OED states that the prefix in gives the negative sense to adjectives, especially those of Latin origin. So who the devil decided "inflammable" and "flammable" mean the same thing? The Latins! It isn't flammable with a prefix "in," it's root is the Latin word inflamm[are.] Weird stuff. Togas and grammar-trickery. No wonder they ruled the world. At least until someone took issue with being called "associates" because they actually learned Latin and found out that it meant "serfs." Kind of like people who work at certain Big Box stores...

There are people who turn nouns into verbs for some reason. I know the language is growing and changing but, really, don't fix things if they ain't broke! Most of the people who "verb" nouns remind me of Bill Lumburgh, the supervisor from the movie Office Space. "Tasking" someone to do something, for instance. "Helming" a movie. WTF??? A director is standing at the wheel of a ship? What? "Orientating," sort of... that's sort of, well, I don't know what that is. Some of these things are just simply from ignorance. An example would be Helen Hunt's embarrassing "I'm now so averted to pigs." Well, honestly, Ms. Hunt, you are a great actress and cute as a bug, but the word you were looking for was NOT averted. Unless, of course, you have found yourself in the unfortunate position of losing control of your eyes when in the presence of porkers. Did you mean "adverse to pigs?" That isn't quite right but better than what did proceed from your lips. Or, maybe you have an aversion to pigs...
For anyone interested, here is a link with a whole list of verbs that were/are actually nouns:
Verbing of the language
If it weren't so sad, it would be funny.

Slang terms... "cool beans." God save me from "cool beans!" I don't know where that came from but it is so far beyond stupid it defies description. I heard an actual, really-truly adult use that a while back. Duh? "pimp" hardly bears thinking about. Really.

Those poor folks who say "should of gone" rather than "should have gone." *sigh*

Will be back with more. Yes, indeed. Stay tuned for further developments.



* A friend has informed me that "truthiness" was coined by Steven Colbert as a swipe at politicians. In that context, it would be funny. Using it in conversation or as a regular part of vocabulary is just annoying.