Wednesday, April 02, 2014

B is for Bummer.

Slang.

I remember lots of terms that date me.  Sometimes, when I finish a beverage, I have been known to say "dead soldier".  I heard it from my grandfather, and used it myself, long before I understood the concept behind it.  I confused a very talkative kid once by saying that she'd been vaccinated with a Victrola needle. (Note: kids raised on CD's and MP3's have no clue about needles used for music...) 

My slang, however, tends toward 70's and 80's a bit more, my "formative years", as it were.

If something is highly disgusting, I tend to proclaim it "Gross".  If someone is objectionable, they are a "Butt head".  (I seem to remember when I was small using 'rotten egg', but butt head is much more descriptive...)  Bummer for something bad, I still use from time to time, much to the amusement of younger friends...

When I was working at the school district, I was annoying (mostly) girls because I would call to the boys "hey, dudes", whereupon said girls would gripe loudly that their classmates weren't "dudes".  I would reply, they are not dude-ettes, are they?  Which, usually, would annoy the girls and amuse the boys enough that they would leave, or I would get a lecture on why they were girls/boys, young men/women, etc., which, coming from, on average, forth and fifth graders, would lead me to say, with an eye roll, "Oh, maaaan..."  (I could have REALLY messed with 'em and said 'gag me with a Ginsu', but who KNOWS where that would have led with the little darlings...) 

I call Husband Fuzz, which had to be curtailed when I am volunteering at the Sheriff's Office, you would be AMAZED how fast a deputy can swivel his head, wondering if I said what he thought I said...

Neat things are cool, for a tiny march of time I called them bitchin', but was admonished that term wasn't acceptable.  My friends refer to neat things as sweet, (usually pronounced Sa-weeet, with two syllables) and this seems to be what my younger friends use, more often than not.

Now what I am trying to decide, is a lot of what we use on line, LOL, OMG, things like that, going to be the "dinosaur speak" (Thank you, dear niece), of this generation?  Or is it considered slang?

Meh, it's all cool, dude...


*******************

I guess today's general blog is B for Barn Repair...

Well, the barn survived the oddball snow this year, with big thanks to Husband's rather creative method of snow removal.  For anyone interested, cement floats work pretty well to pull snow off lower roofs...  However, when he inspected the supports and the overhead beams, there were some pretty noticeable cracks.  

So, today being an unexpected nice day, he is out putting up supports.  This entails putting a waterpipe on a jack, jacking the roof up to the proper angle, then having me hold one end by a rope, as he puts the other end up.  Rather unique, and probably less than OSHA approved, especially when he has the ladder on a pallet, as it isn't quite tall enough... 

But you know, it works, and when he finishes, it should be pretty darn stout.  He has now decided that there will be braces on either side of the overheads, and supports running from the uprights.  Which is good, but I keep thinking that is a lot of work for him.  I am glad to report, he has decided he isn't going to do this all in one day, however.  

So, I am cleaning house (except for right now, when I am catching up on blogging), and then running out to see if he needs help.  Which means I am back and forth quite a bit... 

You know, I am very happy I have a crock pot!


7 comments:

stephen Hayes said...

I remember using words like boss (cool) and righteous and of course bitching'. Every now and then one of these relics enter my speech and our son makes a point of mocking me. He can really be a bummer!

MunirGhiasuddin said...

I guess Barn repair is better than Bummer. Take care.

messymimi said...

Crock pots are the best! And you can remind the young whipper snappers who use LOL and such that this kind of shorthand was originally used by, get this, Morse code telegraph operators! Yes, really, they had a lot of such shorthand to make their work easier, and to allow them to talk to each other in ways that others wouldn't understand. Sound familiar? (grin)

Kudos to you and your husband on the barn work, and i think it's cute that you call him "Fuzz."

Willow said...

We have some B for barn repair this month too ~ bummer ;)

carol said...

Bummer, cool, dude, those are my words too. I just can't bring myself to use modern "slang" like OMG or LOL even when I'm texting. And I hate it when people actually say LOL out loud.

http://carolsnotebook.com

Anonymous said...

My cousin, a hippie and about 10 years older than I, taught me "bummer" back in the 70s. I think of her now whenever I hear it. (Which isn't often...) :)

Unknown said...

ha, I still use "bummer" and I had no idea it was outdated! My 20yo son uses "sick" in place of "cool" sometimes, which I don't understand, because IMO if something is "sick" then it isn't well, which means it more bummer than boss. <-- see what I did there? lol!

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