it’s just plain ridonkulous
January 31st, 2010 | Written by hurricanic
Call me a grammar snob, but I’m not the biggest fan of people making up words. Sure, sure, it’s how our vocabulary grows. Whatever. I just think it makes people sound ridiculous. Or, as some might say in current culture instead – ridonkulous. Right. Like that’s a word.
For those of you who don’t know, I named this blog after a long standing frustration with the word “tornadic”. Let me explain the root of my frustration. It’s – Not – A – Real – Word. Well, I guess it is now (http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/TORNADIC), but it shouldn’t be. To say “there’s tornadic activity” seems weird to me. Especially when you’re Katie Horner and you say it 8,000 times in the course of an hour when a storm moves through Kansas City. There’s either a tornado or there isn’t. There might be cloud formations. There might be wind. But unless there’s a tornado, there isn’t a tornado. I rebuttal with the claim you should also then say “there’s hurricanic activity”. But people argue there’s either a hurricane or there’s not. It’s just bad logic.
I had a ridonkulous conversation with Jared over this very thing one night. “The weather’s awfully lightastic out there!” “I’ve never seen weather be quite so thunderific!” All things that follow suit in my brain when people start using words like “tornadic” and they catch on and meteorologists across the nation adopt it as a legitimate descriptor. Jared thought I was being, well, ridonkulous. I knew, however, it was a slippery slope. “Tornadic” was but the gateway drug into a future mayhem of vocabulary debacle. Imagine my shock and awe when watching the weather forecast a couple weeks back when Joel Nichols threw out the word “frizzle”…not only in verbal form, but in text on the graphics screen as he showed the cold front moving into our city. What?!? FRIZZLE?!? Are you serious? People, he was referring to FROZEN DRIZZLE. Oh…frizzle. Right. A clear alternative to simply saying frozen drizzle, because saying frozen drizzle is just too many syllables, I guess. Or, well, maybe he’s a big fan of Snoop Dogg and his music has started to take effect as he speaks to the general public about weather.
I’ve been trying to think of stupid words I could make up to write a blog entry out of words that don’t exist, but it’s taking too much time and effort for a joke I’m sure only I will enjoy. Sorry, kids. And while I’m on it, let me just say I feel like my life somehow has become substantially less entertaining since I’ve stopped dating. All I have to talk about is home remodeling and the weather. Man, I’m lame. I’ll try to start living a life full of adventure and craziness again so you have something to read about. Maybe I’ll start taking fencing classes or dressing Kodak up in outfits each Monday and pulling a play on William Wegman or something just so you aren’t subjected to entries like this. Yeah. Maybe I will.