Tag: Language

Whistling Dixie

1963 Comet

Actually, these students weren’t whistling Dixie at all, because that term doesn’t involve any whistling. Whistling Dixie isn’t even racist, though the word might trigger you. I feel sorry for a former classmate with that name. Nope, whistling Dixie just means laying out your pipe dreams in idle chitchat, sharing your hopes as you’re shooting the breeze, with the connotation that you may not ever actually bring that dream to pass.

One could apply it to teens who forego college in order to, as they put it, “pursue dreams of being influencers.” One could apply it to endless promises of political candidates on either side of the spectrum. As you age, you may become more jaded and skeptical by hearing decades of unfulfilled promises, coming to think that most promises are just folks whistling Dixie, telling you what want to hear, but never making good on it.

However, if I tell my husband I’m doing two loads of laundry, the dishes, mowing the back yard, and fixing up a beef roast today, I’m not whistling Dixie. It’s not balderdash, rubbish, nor hogwash. It’s the real deal, y’all. Or as the kids simply say, “FACTS.”

So just make sure that when you start laying out your strategy, that you’ve got good intentions and a solid path to make it come to pass. Otherwise, folks might be inclined to disbelieve you, as they say. And I ain’t whistling Dixie.

But We Don’t Use Furlongs

In 16 seconds, a trotter can travel one furlong. That’s a sentence I bet you’ve never said. We can deduce that the one trotting, the horse, is the trotter. Back in 1949, when this ad debuted, most folks knew what a furlong was: 1/8 of a mile or 660 feet. That’s further than I have to walk to go to my neighborhood mailbox. The Kohl’s is a half a mile away, so it’s half of half of that. Now I can picture it. I bet I could trot it in a flat minute, but surely not 16 seconds. And that’s the value of language in advertising; making sure your readers are on board. Today, the only furlong referenced is Edward, the hot mess of an actor, bless his heart.

Bayer came out in the century before the one we were all born in, unless you’re wee and Generation Z. And it’s the gold standard for folks with any heart issues to take each morning; I myself took a yummy chewable low-dose one for two years before I could discontinue it. It’s time-tested and cardiologist-approved. If you don’t take it, you’ve got friends or family who do. And if by chance, they want to sprint a furlong, they won’t drop dead of cardiac arrest while doing it.

If you’re the kind of person who wants extra credit and likes to learn old measurements, I’ll toss this bonus pic in for you.

wikipedia

Feel free to incorporate it into this weekend’s conversation, perhaps talking about how one day you’d like to retire and live on an oxgang. Wouldn’t we all?

Living In The Present

Keeping up with teenspeak is hard. It’s enough that technology is ever changing, and staying abreast of all the texting acronyms can be exhausting. As soon as you graduate high school, you become more and more out of touch with popular culture. Adulting comes with new responsibilities, and there is no time (or context) to stay on top of new trending terms. Even if you DO learn juvy jargon, you sound foolish saying, “Whatevs” or yelling “Yeet!” these days. But you do it anyway, if you are a parent or a teacher, to make the children uncomfortable, and to show them that you have a thin, however out of context, grasp on NOW.

But you do not. You cannot. There’s too much to stay on top of. For example, you may be aware that Adidas are the cool shoes and that only white soles are acceptable, but you (in your adultness) need arch support and crosstrainers, so you wear Dad shoes. “Dad shoes” are a thing. Google it. Teens love to dis Dad shoes. They are the chunky peanut butter to the creamy, sleek, current styles. Teens do not wear New Balance. You may even think you are cool and say, “Damn, Daniel” at shoes, but that is so 2000 and late, which in itself is an antiquated reference and makes me #tired. PS, hashtags are so over. If you don’t know what any of this means, your kids are probably grown. These are Dad shoes, and a teen would not be caught dead in them.

Parent a teen is exhausting in itself, but trying to keep up with their music is beyond demanding. Isn’t it enough that I watched Post Malone on the Elvis special last week? (Yep, he’s the rapper with the face tats.) Did y’all catch that last week? It honored the 50 year anniversary of Elvis’s ’68 Comeback Special. FIFTY YEARS. You know, the one where he wore all black leather. I watched it, staying open-minded and seeing Post pic and play in his yellow suit, which reminded me of Nudie suits of yore. And son of a gun, if he wasn’t pretty good. But it’s hard to like new music.

All this to say, I learned a new thing today (realizing that most whippersnappers  already know this and are horrified that I just learned it), but I’m sharing it with those other out-of-touchers, as I would hope you would Golden Rule me and keep me abreast of the things.

Yes, I was today years old (that’s another thing they say) when I learned TL;DR (too long; didn’t read). It’s a comment people make on a long-winded post, which is IRONIC because this post is already so long! It’s the very essence of TL;DR. You should call me Post MaLONG. See how lame that sounds? That’s because old people puns are cringey. I know because my teen tells me every day. TL;DR even has its own wikipedia on Twitter.

So that’s it for today, peeps. Go out into the interwebs and use your new abbreviation. TTYL.

 

*And don’t you dare comment TL;DR! 😉

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