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Hello. My name is Jo Slade, and I am a catchphrase addict.
It is a trait I inherited from my father. During the 70s, he would say things like, ‘sit on it, ya noid’ and ‘up your nose with a rubber hose’. He looked normal, but underneath lurked those crazy catchphrases. When I was a teenager it wasn’t so bad because I didn’t hear a word he said, ever, because teenagers have a parent-filter that protects them from such things, but my guess is he probably said things like ‘sock it to me’. I was blissfully unaware.
Interestingly, adults have catchphrases, but teenagers don’t. Teens are far too cool for catchphrases. The things they say would be called catchphrases if adults said them, but when teens say them they are merely über-cool words and none of an adult’s business. If an adult steals one, the word is ruined and must be replaced. When that happens, which is all too often, teens judge you, with severe angst-filled rolled eyes. This is because teenagers do not think adults are amazeballs. Amazeballs, by the way, is the Best Word Ever, full stop. It can never be topped. It is a thing of beauty, and ever since discovering it, I’ve not let a day go by without using it.
My grandson, who is nine, already has cool words and phrases. He actually shudders when we use them, which, of course, guarantees that we will ramp up the usage. He tells us in no uncertain terms that we don’t say the words right, and that we just look silly when we try. He is probably right. When we say ‘yolo, for the lols’ (one of his favourites), his head explodes.
Head explosions have become commonplace on the internet. They occur when people see a cute kitten video, a video that is totes amazeballs.
My head explodes a lot. If someone posts any kind of status update on facebook, my head explodes on the spot.
Some people claim that their head has LITERALLY exploded. The incorrect use of ‘literally’ to mean ‘figuratively’ is now so widespread that it can lead to problems of clarification. If your head really does literally explode, how do you differentiate it from a regular explosion?
“Whoa, my head just literally exploded.”
“Oh yeah, man. My head explodes every time I see a cute kitten video.”
“No, I mean it literally exploded.”
“No way, man - mine too! Literally! Totes!”
“No, I mean it literally-literally exploded, not literally-figuratively.”
“OH, oh right, yeah, man, my head does that all the time when I’m watching kitten videos. Literally! Just, like BOOM: head exploded!”
“No, you’re not listening, I mean literally exploded - look over there for god’s sake, that’s my eyeball in the fish bowl. And look on the wall, hello nose and teeth. And see? See the brain? - all over the place, we’re still mopping up the blood. My head LITERALLY, for REAL, exploded.”
It can be exhausting. Especially if you have a headache, which sometimes happens after your head explodes. Literally the worse headache ever.
But yolo, for the lols, man.
‘I think not’ is another catchphrase. I think it is a catchphrase, but if I didn’t think so, I’m not sure I’d say I think not. On the other hand, if I think so and it turns out that absolutely I think not is not, then I’d have to think not and say not. Or not. This whole paragraph is amazeballs. My head is perilously close to exploding again.
Literally.
Some catchphrases aren’t really catchphrases, they are just Wrong Things, like ‘nevermind’. Seeing ‘never mind’ written as one word unsettles the mind, or what’s left of the mind after it has exploded. When the two words are squished together like that it comes out extra fast when you’re thinking it. Instead of n e v e r (space) m i i i i i n d, it comes out nvrmnd.
But . . . whatever.
‘Whatever’ first came onto my radar in the mid 70s, and it is still out there, on the loose. A rogue catchword, wild and untamed, still annoying anyone who hears it.
‘Whatever’ has nuances, though. There’s the passive-aggressive and chilly: whatever.
Then there’s the clipped tension-riddled my-god-I’m-going-to-go-ballistic-and-cut-off-your-toes: What. Ever.
“What. Ever” is what you use when someone writes ‘nevermind’. What. Ever.
In early years Jim and I created a fair share of our own catchphrases and catchwords, some of which inadvertently bled into our little community. We were amazeballs. For example, when Heather was a baby, Jim and I called diapers ‘bum-bums’. And her little push car was the ‘chicken-mo’, ‘chicken’ as in one of her nicknames, and ‘mo’ as in ‘mobile’. Soon we realized that a lot of people we knew had started calling diapers ‘bum-bums’ and push cars ‘chicken-mos’.
Amazeballs trendsetters.
Mostly, though, we just picked up on what was out there. Our trouble is, once we adopt a catchphrase it is almost impossible to get it out of our system. We offer forever homes to catchphrases.
One from the early 80s, ‘the lotto machine is broken’, is Jim’s personal favourite. He has used it 1,000,000,000 times to date, and shows no signs of letting up. I think his life would be made perfect if just once he could come upon a broken lotto machine. Just once.
And of course there’s the wonderfully cantankerous ‘Hey you kids! Get outta my yard!’, another 80s gem and another favourite of Jim’s. He started saying it back when he was a young man, and now he has arrived to the real-deal ‘hey you kids, get outta my yard’ age.
He is decrepit, but amazeballs.
His head has yet to explode.
Photo: Contributed
This article is written by or on behalf of an outsourced columnist and does not necessarily reflect the views of Castanet.
