Things I promise not to say in 2009

Jaw-dropping

It was clever once, but that was many, many years in the past. I confess to having used this term. Recently. In print. Possibly more than once. Now, it is lazy, cliché, and ineffective. I am giving myself a dope slap…right…now! Ouch. It hurts so good. Laugh-out-loud funny See comments under “jaw-dropping,” above. Yeah-yeah-yeah (or, yah-yah-yah) You’ve heard this one, and probably used it yourself. It can mean “I agree with you,” or “Now I remember!” or “I know, I know!” It bugs the s%@! out of me, especially when I hear it sputtering from my own lips. Nevermore, I swear.  Got Okay, “got” is an extraordinarily useful and omnipresent word. It’s not going away anytime soon, and I will doubtless use it myself both in conversation and in writing. But I will use it less often. Tween A young woman of, perhaps, eleven years once called me to account for using this word to describe the readers for whom Mary Logue and I intended the Bloodwater Mysteries series. She perceived it as derogatory; I cannot blame her. Anyway, she scared me off using the word ever again in any context whatsoever. I am now without a word to describe persons aged eleven and twelve, or thereabouts, who have realized their full intelligence, but lack the knowledge that comes with adulthood, and the insanity that comes with teenagerness.* Then See comments under “got,” above. *Yet another word I promise not to use—ever again.