It seems like every year, new vocabulary words pop up in our everyday talk. Lots of new words and phrases are invented and used by techies and young whippersnappers. These young ‘uns have their own language, it appears, but that doesn’t bother me much since there ain’t no app on their newfangled cellphones that can translate the vernacular of old coots like me. Go ahead, kids. Type in “cattywampus” and see if your $600 phone recognizes it as a word.
Speaking of cellphones, I finally entered the 21st Century and bought a so-called Smart phone after my old one died of old age When I showed my dearly departed Nokia to the gal at the AT&T store, her eyes got all big like I had carried in a dinosaur skull. She informed me that she had seen pictures of this type of phone but had never seen one in person.
Anyway, I bought myself a smart phone. Not Phd smart but Jethro Bodine/9th grade education smart. Unfortunately, the phone is still smarter than its user. There were so many apps and gadgets on the phone, I spent two hours deleting stuff that was well beyond my intellect. One icon that pops up occasionally has the word “widgets” under it. What in tarnation is a widget? Back in my youth, if I were struggling to crawl into a tight spot while playing Hide-N-Seek, my brother would say, “C’mon, widget on in there”. I have no idea what the new meaning of the word is.
Remember that blizzard we had a few weeks ago? Brrr! So tell me, if you would, what the heck is a graupel? That’s what the TV meteorologists kept calling the frozen white stuff that covered our deck and prevented me from communing with nature. I had never heard of graupel before, although I recall a few TV anchormen losing their jobs for graupeling women. I’m not sure it’s spelled the same. Spell-check on this here computer blew a fuse long ago.
Another word that is brand-spankin’ new to me is “hophead”. Just added to the 2019 Webster dictionary, it’s what some jackleg coined for a beer enthusiast. Well, if that don’t beat all! I’ve been drinking beer for pert near 45 years, and nobody has ever called me a hophead. Oh, I’ve been called other names in beer joints across America, but never a hophead. I bet whoever made up this silly term for a beer drinker has never stepped foot in Giddyups.
Okay, here’s a word that for the past year has been tossed around like a dried cow patty at a 4th of July picnic. Collusion. Ever since Trump was sworn in, there hasn’t been a day where we haven’t heard “collusion’ on some network newscast. And just this past week, Colin Kaepernick settled his lawsuit with the NFL after claiming there was collusion among the team owners. Does any of y’all with naturally gray hair recall hearing the word “collusion” in your younger days? Besides hearing your toothless grandpa talkin’ about seeing a collusion between a ’65 Buick and a John Deere out on the main road.
Since I’m half ways literate, and having graduated from college with a degree in beer chuggin’ with a minor in disco dancing, I sorta understand what collusion means, but we just didn’t use the word back when stores didn’t sell ripped up jeans. If a couple of fellas were teaming up to do something wrong, they were in cahoots with each other. Walter Cronkite might’ve used the term “conspiracy”, but I don’t recall him ever saying “collusion”.
Look, if y’all Millennials and Gen Z pups want to make up words, that’s fine and dandy. Heckfire, when I was a greenhorn, we concocted a mess of slang words back to get the goat of our parents. Just don’t throw a conniption when we older folks ignore what y’all are jibberin’about. We aren’t being rude. We just don’t know what in the Sam Hill you’re saying.
Clint Younts may graupel with words, but when it comes to taking care of his cattle, he certainly speaks Moo.
