The Yada Yada: Words About Nothing

"Most of the time I abide by Oxford dictionary rules, unless they does not meet my needs."

And then, I just do what I want. And so do my friends. Because. Diachrony. I used to think that you had to have a doctorate to have earned the license to create words, but then I got over that. Language can and does evolve and so there go I.

"Genuineness" and "genuinity" are too long of words and life is too short to waste, so I am bringing the short form, "genuity" into being. Pretend it is the new "fetch." Okay- now that the prologue is over, let's be more genuine and stop hiding behind words and phrases that mean nothing (and have little to no value). Surely, if I can shorten a word; some words should be eliminated in totality.

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Recently, I took an inventory of phases in English we say that have little meaning. Here are some I listed, "be safe." While I can see some value in the phase, "drive safe." "Be safe?" Do you ever want me to be reckless? Do you expect I am even going to remember this five (5) minutes later? Ha. Maybe we just mean, "be careful." But, unless it is contextually-implied, what is the imminent danger? Safety should be everyone's modus operandi.

Similarly, "be well." I am not even sure what this one really means. Do I need to command my body to get itself in order? In a sense of keeping it under control, yes. But, on the other hand, should I stop by Walgreens or CVS on my way home? What does it really mean to "be well?" Eye-rolling aside, we probably mean something else by that phrase. How about its related cousin, "take care." I do not even know where to start with that. I mean really, again, when should I NOT "take care." I have never heard someone reflect back to this phrase in making a decision.

One of my friends recently called me out on my use of the phrase, "for sure." It's my "I agree 100% and I am not about this text message life." Touché. Most of the time, I fight spewing untruth through silence or emojis, but I do have my fair exchange of "words about nothing." I typed "for sure" into my message search and I have 571 messages tagged. Don't get me wrong- many phrases are well-intentioned, but fewer accomplish what we ultimately seek. For sure? For sure.

Modified photo credit by Flickr's wetwebwork