Cockroach vs Conscience

"Murder the damned thing!" My voice hammered at the walls of our flat like a drum at an execution.

The creature was a spawn of hell, a black scourge brooding against the cream-white fibreglass. People bathe in that. My crooked smile warped into a grimace. That cockroach has to die.

"I can't find the fly swat, or the spray," Douglas announced. His news spelled doom for us all. I turned to him and frowned, but my gaze was never far from the creature. Its monstrous antennae lashed and lurched in my peripherals.

"I found the spray." Thank God.

Josiah soaked the thing, which, minutes later, tumbled onto its back with a light pat. I've always hated that sound.

The ordeal laboured in silence; not a single word was spoken save a few eughs and hmms. And then Douglas decided he wasn't through with it.

"What are you doing?" I asked as he reached for the faucet. "It's already dying!"

"It's not dying fast enough!"

The rush of water muffled the critter's pleas for mercy. I couldn't watch, yet my eyes wouldn't stray; the same eyes that glared with fear now trembled with pity.

The dying critter lifted with the current, helpless and scared, and then stuck in the drain.

"Stop, you're drowning it!" In truth he was water-boarding it.

"It's a cockroach!"

"It's unnecessary!"

"You're unnecessary!"

He fitted the plug on - not an easy task with the thing you're trying to murder in the way.

"Masking your sins is no way to deal with them!"

He just laughed.

We returned to the scene minutes later to find our victim twitching helplessly. I think one of us must have freighted it to the bin. It was over two years ago; the memory becomes hazy where the emotions start to wane. Yeah, even I wonder how manly our seven-man flat must have been, or not been.

Those emotions were real, and they revive every time I think of the ordeal. When there isn't a swat in reach, when the horror takes but one second too long to die, my perception instantly transforms, injecting compounds of sympathy and guilt, convicting me. The horror becomes a helpless soul sacrificed for convenience.

I once drowned a moth - a large moth - because it was perched on my towel and I had just got out of the shower. Thank goodness for manoeuvrable shower heads, I thought. Curse it for this damnable conscience.

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The Rulebook for Facebook. Ten things you should never do.

It's something of a virtual garden, this Facebook. Out of the soil we call newsfeed grows fruits, vegetables, flowers and weeds. The weeds are villains, as you will know, strangling every flower of life and substance, capturing every fruit beneath stem and sprout. I try to hide them myself, but the task is no lasting cure, and the routine is growing ever more onerous. Perhaps I should quit this garden altogether. Or… or I could share the following list with the world. Yes. Yes I see it now. This is the cure! Uh, right. Ahem.

You should never…

1. Facebook your problems

You won't get my attention, no matter how vague you are. In fact, you'll get my UN-attention. That is, I will hide you.

2. Send people game requests

Every time I get a game request, I a) block said request, b) consider blocking the requester, and c) think to myself, "I'd rather play a real game." And then I do.

3. Instagram photos of food

Trust me, honey, you ain't gonna make that fried chicken look any less nasty no matter which photo editing programme's ass you worship.

4. Say "Hi" to me (and nothing else) after years of silence

Crickets chirping. Tumbleweed hovering. A vulture squawking. Me ignoring (you).

5. Upload photos of yourself posing in front of a mirror

Look at yourself! Oh wait, you are, all the time. That's admirable.

6. Use a false name

I will likely forget who you are and unfriend you.

7. Ask me why I unfriended you

I might be tempted to use a false name so you can't... oh wait.

8. Write something entirely unrelated to the status under which you're commenting

Status: Bought our first house!

Appropriate comment: Nice!

Inappropriate comment: Did I leave my phone in your car? *hic*

9. Add me even though you've never met me

If you do this, I'll have to go through the tiring process of clicking on your profile, scanning your friends list for any mutual friends, your timeline for anything familiar, and my memory for some past event involving you. After having zero success on all accounts, I'll see that you've added anyone and everyone. Well don't, stranger! It's annoying!

10. Upload a photo of yourself with the caption, "Lol, I'm so ugly" (or some variation that implies the same thing).

Lol, I'm such a noob at grammar. Lol, I don't know the first thing about spelling. Lol, what is English? Lol. WE AREN'T IDIOTS.

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Five words that aren't words but should be. Start saying them.

This list was harder to think up than I anticipated, and not because the non-words are used so scarcely that I'd almost forgotten about them. Anna, a friend who can vouch for me that these non-words should be words, put it nicely when she said,

"The problem is we use them so normal-like, that they aren't stored in our heads as weirdly words."

Just so; I hope they become stored in your heads as nothing less than funtastic.

Trouché

Trou∙ché

Exclamation

Used to acknowledge taking a 'hit' (as in the word touché), only that the hit was also true. A combination of touché and true.

1.         "Aah! My house is on fire!"

            "That's probably because you left the oven on."

            "Trouché."

Goog/Googs

Verb or Noun

An abbreviation for Google.

Examples:

1.         "I'm bored. How long does it take for the fire truck to get here?"

            "I dunno, why don't you Goog it?"

2.         After using Google to find the answer to your question: "Thanks Googs!"

Possibtentially

Poss∙ib∙ten∙tial∙ly

Adverb

Both able to be done and possible. A combination of possibly and potentially.

Synonyms

Proboplausibly

Examples:

1.         "Do you think Mister Muggles is still alive?"

            "Possibtentially."

Zactlo

Zact∙lo

Adverb

The alien term for exactly. It's also more fun to use.

Examples:

1.         "Mister Muggles has an acute sense for danger."

            "Yeah. Plus it wasn't like I put him in the oven."

            "Zactlo!"

Hugify

Hug∙i∙fy

Expression or verb

Used upon magically making something bigger than its ordinary size, that is, after hugifying an object or person. The exact duration of hugification is irrelevant.

Examples:

1.         "Oh look, here comes the fire truck."

            "Hugify!"

            "Huh? Whoa! You just supersized that truck! How did you do that?"

            You smile knowingly. "I'm a wizard."

            "Couldn't you use your magic to extinguish the flames?"

            A lengthy pause. "Trouché."

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Words that aren't words. Stop using them.

I have put together a list of eight words that, quite simply, aren't words. If you say/write them, you should probably stop. Some are spoken correctly but spelled horrendously, while others on paper look fine, but when spoken, make the earth cringe.

(Yes, every time you misspeak a word, somewhere, there's an earthquake).

It would be a top ten, but the highest ranking, 'yous' and 'totes', have achieved such infamy that they each have a post of their own. Links are at the bottom. As promised, here are the other eight.

Alot

Alot is not aword. Neither is apony or apoptart. Weird, right?

Aswell

It’s ‘as well’, with a gap for personal space in between.

Alright

You might not get the red underline for this one. Know why? Because it’s so disgraceful you should know better. ‘All right’ - now there’s a breath of fresh air.

Aks

As in, "Aks him for the cash."

It's entirely possible that at some point in my past, I heard this very command and thought, To what culture does this person belong? Surely killing is illegal there too, right? More importantly, why do they always axe their friends? Note to self: do not befriend this person.

Then it hit me. Oh, they meant 'ask'. Yet I folded my arms, brow creased. Note to self: do not befriend this person.

Dieing

Just look at the three vowels in the middle there and tell me that it makes even a smidgen of sense to pronounce that mutation of letters as ‘die-ing’. I’d probably go for ‘deeeng’, like a doorbell with an Australian accent. 

(The correct spelling of the word that describes someone whose health is presently waning to the point of no longer living is ‘dying’).

Ragland

When someone says "Ragland," I think of a meadow filled with old shirts and car engine-stained flannels, and then I say, “Oh, you mean Raglan. Yeah, sure, let's go.”

Some-think, any-think and every-think

A friend who needs better arguments recently uttered that words ending in ‘ing’ are sometimes pronounced with a ‘k’ stuck to the end to help conclude without having to trail off, since the ‘ng’ on its own doesn’t really 'finish'. I remained unconvinced, replying that any word ending with a vowel doesn’t ‘finish’, and therefore we should add a ‘k’ to them, too. (I was being sarcastic. Don't even think about it.)

Also, no one says 'think' when they mean 'thing'.

Some-pink

No one says this, either, except my childhood neighbour friend. He had a permanently-blocked nose and parents who didn't feel the need to correct him. He was trying to say “something”, but his ‘th’ became ‘p’, and then he added the ‘k’ like an epilogue to his verbal diarrhoea. I must have lost my note.

-------------------------

Totes

http://sanctuaryofsynonyms.blogspot.co.nz/2012/04/totes.html

Yous

http://sanctuaryofsynonyms.blogspot.co.nz/2012/12/the-yous-epidemic.html

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Yous has babies: Yours and Yours's

It was as I exited the mall that I saw it. A double-sided blackboard detailing the specials at Esquires. Except, it didn't read 'specials', but rather... 'speciels'. Noting the prominence of foreign workers within the café, I simply donned a wry smile and carried on. Not an unkind man, I was even willing to forgive and forget, even turn my slanted smile into a cheerful one, so long as the spelling on other side of the board was no different. Yet, a deep, ugly cringe left no doubt left me unrecognisable after I turned my head. SPESHALS!

Anecdote aside, if you're going to get something wrong, then at the very least be consistent!

Deep down, we all know that the pronoun 'you' can apply to any number of people at a time. This means that 'yous' is unnecessary in every instance it gets said. But if you're going to insist on speaking poorly, then you really ought to add an 's' to every word derived from the word 'you'. For instance, after your daily jog, you might stop by your neighbours' house.

You note their car, both awesome (it can fly) and green. "That's a mint car yous of got," you say between short breaths.

"Thanks," your friendly and intelligent neighbour replies, "but we hardly use it ever since we got our teleportation device. It takes us anywhere in seconds!"
"Oh, mean. Can I see yours teleportation device?"

"Sure can. Come on in."

You step inside. It's the most amazing house you've ever seen, the descriptions irrelevant to the blog post in which you're presently featuring. "Wow, this place is real nice. Is it yours's, or are yous renting?"

Why leave 'yous' to fend for itself? Give it some friends. Since you've already turned 'you' into 'yous' in cases where two or more people are the subjects of 'you', naturally you should also do the following. 

It's consistent, it's logical, and it clearly makes your language sound aeons cooler than your everyday lingo. Look, Gollum is on the right track.

What? So, you're saying that Gollum is not your role model? But... the language and all... I just thought... Pshh, whatever.

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Three pet peeves of mine that seem to be social norms

1. When someone fails to make eye contact despite their job in customer service

Some stores are better than others, but, every now and then, I approach the counter of a shop, and the man or woman at the checkout fails to look at me once, especially if there's a queue. A few days ago I bought some CDs from the Warehouse. When I took them to the counter, the woman there retrieved them to scan and mumbled something like, "Hi there." I returned the greeting, while thinking, I hope she was talking to me. She wasn't looking at me, but those CDs sure as hell don't talk back. Then she said "Eftpos?" while looking at the table with weary eyes.

I was thinking, retard?, but found myself saying, "Yes," to her hair-covered scalp, since her head was so low that I would've had to squat to see her face.

Finally, with as much energy in her voice as there was visibility of her eyes, she said, "Have a nice day." I looked at the time. It was 5:30pm.

2. When someone insists on texting during a person-to-person conversation

Why does almost everyone drop everything to reply to a text message? I'll be talking to someone when suddenly their text tone sounds, they frantically say, "Hang on," and they pause the conversation while they text, as if the text is somehow more important than you, as if it's less rude to keep the person on the other end waiting rather than you, the person they're talking to. Two minutes later, they're back at it, texting away again. Can't you just, you know, not text them?

I know there's a time and a place for it. It could be work-related, or family issue-related; but 90% of the time it's not. It's just another friend they're probably going to 'catch up' with after they're finished with you. Where's the fun in that if they're texting the whole time? Scratch that. Where's the fun in texting? Text typing has to be the most boring thing ever, that is, besides the enduring process of watching someone else finish their text.

3. When someone thinks they're cooler than you despite the fact that they're driving a bus

I was recently driving down a main road when a bus turned in from a side road. It pulled out in front of me, and I had to brake (and almost stop) to avoid hitting it. During these pivotal seconds, I stared at the driver: a middle-aged, sun glasses-wearing individual who simply stared back. I kept staring as he slowly turned and I hastily slowed, until finally we'd gone our separate ways. My thoughts during this brief period were as follows.

Pulling in front of me doesn't make you cool, buddy. You drive a freaking bus, all day, around and around, yet you fail to give way. Every time you do that, you're like a cop being pulled over. Really ironic, and it doesn't make you any less uncool.

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YOLO and Idiocracy

I recently saw a film called Idiocracy, in which Joe Bauers gets cryogenically frozen for 500 years, only to reawaken to a world full of idiots. The premise makes the assumption that families who are more productive tend to be less intelligent, more intelligent couples produce less kids, and, therefore, the intelligent die out, and the stupid survive.

Makes sense, I thought; but it wasn't until the year 2505 that I was rendered fully petrified.

In this new society, Starbucks is a brothel of sorts, rubbish dumps reach higher than Everest, and plants are 'watered' with Gatorade because "it has electrolytes". When Mr Bauers asks a bunch of loiterers for directions, they get mad and one of them says, "You're starting to sound faggy." When he pleads with a stranger to help him, and promises gold for his assistance, the stranger replies, "I like moneys." And when Joe enquires where he can get water to drink, the response is, "What, like, water from the toilet?"

I can't speak much for the film's premise since, as it happens, I'm not exactly playing my part in spawning a formidable team of mini-Matts. But needless to say, this extreme decline in human intelligence (and with it, the English language) left me asking, "Could this be happening right now?" And you know what? I think it could, evidenced by the infamous term "YOLO!"

It's a shame it's white. There'll be no hope of concealing my vomit.

Aside from the fact that saying YOLO makes whatever you've just said, are saying, or are about to say contain 100% less integrity, it's also a contradiction. You only live once, yes, so why are you wasting your breath (and reputation) saying YOLO? The term destroys itself, yet no one seems to notice.

Thankfully, not one of my friends takes it seriously. For instance, when Naomi says it, she puts on an extremely pompous English accent and drags the word until you've forgotten whatever it is she was on about. And then we all laugh.

Like 'yous' and 'totes' and other mutations of language, YOLO must only be said as a joke or a jest. We must expose the mutation for what it is, for there are those who do use the term seriously, and it's these people who serve only to pave the slippery slope down which intellect itself will soon tumble and fall... from a teetering pile of junk (a metaphor for crappy words and acronyms) the size of Mount Everest.

And as for the mini-Matts, well, at least now I have a sensible reason to have kids!

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