Oooh, good word!
Kate Amann

I've noticed some of the nerdy little idiosyncrasies I possess, and I'm convinced that they tend to be specific to English majors, particularly writers. Most normal people enjoy things like chocolate and kittens. I like words and the smell of old books. Some get annoyed at the buzzing of a mosquito or cringe at the sound of nails on a chalkboard. I get irritated when people say "do good" instead of "do well." I get mad at people who can't construct proper sentences. Double negatives make me wretch. I'm sure Physics majors have their own specific quirks, but I've never really noticed any of them. That's strange, because I know my weirdness is obvious. I get picked on about it all the time, even by friends who do the same things.

It's mostly little things like the whole "do good/do well" thing that piss me off. I get irritated when people spell "all right," "alright" or write "alot" instead of "a lot." (And, by the way, when I typed "a lot" incorrectly into this article, word automatically fixed it: another one of my peeves, but we'll get to that later.) And when people write letters to me as if they're speaking it makes me cringe. I'm sorry, but there are just some expressions that do not translate well to print. Unless you're writing a story and using dialect in a conversation, just can the colloquialisms. But those are all minor offenses; the real kicker for me is internet slang. I hate it with a fiery, burning passion, and I am convinced that it will be the bane of intelligent human existence. I can't tell you how many times I've wanted to jump through the computer and chop someone's hand off because they used "lol" or "omg" or they were too lazy to type out "because" or "just kidding" and used "bc" or "j/k" instead. Words are way too important to me to allow this sort of blasphemy, and I do call people on it. I understand the concept of being lazy, because I am very lazy myself, and I also understand the concept of fast paced communications and the fact that we should not be expected to do things like spell-check our instant messages, but that doesn't give anyone the excuse to eliminate words as they see fit. If this abbreviation business continues, we'll end up with a language full of letters and numbers representing actual words (for example, "b4" "2 u" etc.). Things like "omg" will become attached to their intended meaning and, god forbid, people may actually start using abbreviations regularly in speech. Can you imagine someone saying "lol" or "omg" in a spoken conversation? I've heard it, and it's not pretty. I mean, for the love of little apples, just say "OH MY GOD!" It's much more fun to yell the actual phrase anyway, because you can attach all sorts of emotion to it. But an abbreviation? Come on, people. Don't reduce yourselves.

Oh, excuse the interruption of my train of complaints that actually go together, but this one has been irking me since I started caring about poetry in the first place. Tied for most irritating with internet slang are rain metaphors. People, please. It's been done. Far too many times. Just stop before you even try. The sky is not crying, okay? It's dumping ridiculous amounts of water on your head because you deserve to be soaked to the point where you smell like a wet rat for what you're trying to pull off. Don't write about rain. Better yet, avoid precipitation altogether. You can't make it sound beautiful or profound or unique unless you're someone who can actually write poetry, and if you're trying to write rain metaphors, you are not writing poetry. Don't even try to get around that catch-22, just let it rain and write about something else. PLEASE.

Sorry about that. Now, back to computers. Everyone on this campus has access to one in some way, right? So tell me, do I have "your personal spelling dictionary" stamped on my forehead? My friends instant message me asking how to spell a word. Hello? You have MS Word ON YOUR COMPUTER! Type in the word in question, wait for the red squiggly line, right click, AND FIX IT YOURSELF! I mean come on, you're already on the damn computer. And as for those red squiggly lines, I've got a bone to pick with Bill Gates:

Dear Sir, you need to refrain from having your program decide it knows what and how I want to write. When I am writing poetry and I want the first letter of a line capitalized, I will do it myself. I do not need your program taking control of my creative license. I realize there are idiots out there who depend on your auto caps so their sentences turn out correctly, but I am not one of those idiots. Please kindly shove the automatic formatting up your ass. This includes the red and green squiggly lines. If I want to spell-check, I will mosey on up to the toolbar and click "spell-check." I don't need red lines appearing while I'm typing, because they're distracting. And the green lines, well, those little assholes are usually wrong. I know when I've written a sentence fragment, and usually I mean to. Because I CAN. That's what happens, Bill. When you know the rules, you can break them. Your green lines are not allowed to tell me I'm wrong, because they are not writing: I AM. And while we're on the subject of irritating lines, why does your program decide my paragraphs need big, obnoxious, dotted lines between them? And why, after being irritating enough to do such a thing in the first place, is it completely cryptic about telling me how to get rid of said lines? Because obviously, if I wanted them, I WOULD HAVE ASKED FOR THEM. Sincerely, your worst enemy.

Okay, okay, enough anger. I need to get to the good things now. I have this obsession with words. If friends use a word I like, I will make sure they know it's a good word, usually by loudly interjecting, "Oooh, good word!" like a geek. People need to stop raining on my parade when I do that and allow me to revel in the small amount of pathetic joy it brings me. Just let me do my little dance and make a big deal. I'm not really embarrassing you, am I? As for these good words, there are all kinds. Tasty words, sticky words, violent words, words that sound exactly and sometimes grossly like what they mean - slice, squeegee, and regurgitate belonging to the latter category. (Just think about it for a minute, they DO sound like what they mean, don't they?) When a word is good, I freak out. I want to use it a million times and expose everyone else to its glorious presence in the English language. I have favorite words, too. Acquiesce is particularly delectable. Reverie and coterie rank pretty high as do proximity, anapest, and blasphemy. I will find ridiculous excuses to use these and other scrumptious words like them just so I can hear them. My friends are very aware of this and they know when I've used a word just because I like it. I get teased. I don't care.

I'm insane about books, too, especially the old ones with that yummy old-book smell - that's my favorite smell in the world. I could live forever in a used book store sniffing myself into an aged-and-mildewed induced stupor. My friends get so irritated when they can't get me to leave. If they get me in a Barnes and Noble, they are not getting me out until the store closes, and, even then, they might have trouble. Nice libraries even work, but I'm more about buying my books. I buy books like there's no tomorrow. I have about three times more than I've actually gotten around to reading and I still keep buying them. I wouldn't be able to handle having no unread books on my shelves. It's like an addiction. Some people smoke, I buy books. If they had Books Anonymous group, I'd be their poster child. I will someday live on the streets with a sign that says, "will work for books," because I spent my last paycheck on, well, you know…

This is just a sampling of the nerdy quirks I've acquired, mostly from being an English department rat in High School. I do have friends who have the same irks and fascinations, but they're all English majors like me, so I want to see the weirdness come out of those Physics majors. I know next to nothing about the subject, so I wouldn't know what to expect, but they should really let their nerdy qualities shine through. You know, like, "Oooh, good problem set!" or something. Really, it's fun. I promise.