Dear Interviewees: Kindly stop using the word “so” at the beginning of your answers to questions.
Q: “Why do folks start their answers with ‘So…'”?
A: “So I guess that they use it for flow.”
Q: “Don’t they know that it’s wrong?”
A: “So their habit’s so strong,
They believe that they sound ‘in the know.'”
My hunger for words is voracious,
And I’ve just learned a new one: “fugacious.”
It means “fleeting,” I’ve read,
But it soon will have fled
From a brain insufficiently spacious.
A Slate language column by Katy Waldman has me re-thinking my anti-antimeria stance. (Antimeria is a “rhetorical device that repurposes a word as a different part of speech than usual.”)
Her column makes some solid points about antimeria’s advantages. In fact, the device may even prove to be handy for humor writing.
Katy’s viewpoint may generate frowns:
Turning nouns into verbs, verbs to nouns
Is extolled by that writer.
Though some may indict ’er,
The thought ain’t as bad as it soun’s.
The word “sanction” is terribly flawed
Cuz its usage goes well beyond broad.
If you say that my act
Has been sanctioned, redact:
Did you penalize me, or applaud?
Do you cringe when people incorrectly use the reflexive pronoun “myself” instead of “me?”
Myself too! (And yes, I was joking.)
Misuse of “myself” is widespread.
It’s an error that people should shed.
To reflexively use it
And often abuse it
May stop you from getting ahead.
Alas, “selfie” is Oxford Dictionaries’ international Word of the Year for 2013, beating out shortlisters “bedroom tax,” “binge-watch,” “bitcoin,” “olinguito,” “schmeat,” “showrooming,” and “twerk.”
Picture This: My Selfish Take On “Selfie” (Limerick)
By Madeleine Begun Kane
Oxford’s Word of the Year is a crime!
Choosing “selfie” just won’t ring my chime.
Why not finalist “schmeat,”
The lab-raised fake meat?
For one thing, “schmeat’s” simpler to rhyme.
Mad Kane (Madeleine Begun Kane) is a writer, musician, and "recovering lawyer." She won the Robert Benchley Society Award For Humor and enjoys writing limericks, song parodies, and current events haiku.
You can email her at madkane@madkane.com, visit her political humor blog, or stop by her home page.
