I recently came across this Alberta Cross clip, and it was a quirky reminder of one of my big linguistic pet peeves.
Sorry, Terry. I can tell you in no uncertain terms that samey is not a word.
When it comes down to it, I don’t blame Terry at all. Sometimes a word just sounds so right or is simply used so often by others that you think it’s a real word. Actually, if I had to blame someone, it might have to be Biggie and his song “Big Poppa”, the prime case in point. I don’t think anyone can argue that he was single-handed responsible for the cultural mass proliferation of the word conversate. No disrespect at all to Biggie, but this was a knowing and egregious misappropriation of a word. People, this is nothing new, so if you didn’t know, it’s about time you did.
And while we’re on the subject, let’s think twice before releasing “non-standard” words such as irregardless without any subsequent thought. Secretly, my great fear is that hoards of impressionable youth think this is not only okay but eloquent just because a cute and perky Lacy Chabert said it in Mean Girls. Regardless is one syllable shorter, and it means the same damn thing!
Gretchen Weiners: Irregardless, ex-boyfriends are just off limits to friends. I mean that’s just like the rules of feminism.
Sure, I have a sense of humor – I happen to love Mean Girls – and I get it. The line is contextually oh-so-clever, but there are those with whom, well, the subtleties are lost. Ultimately, my beef (Another biggie-ism! Oh, they irony!) isn’t that people misuse and make up words; there is often good and effective rhetorical purpose to do so, sometimes leading to lyrical genius. However, the moral of the story is to know the difference if you do!
Alright class. Let’s do a quick recap:
- samey – cute, kind of like playing jax, (i.e. one-sies, two-sies) but not a word
- conversate – very liberal-minded of dictionary.com to include it, but still, not a word
- irregardless – non-standard and just plain inefficient
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