P'isms

As we enter Day 9 of BEDA I've decided I'm no longer responsible for the quality of my entries. Fettucine Alfredo, this is hard!!!

This concludes the griping portion of this entry, we now take you back to your regularly scheduled blog entry, which is already in progress...

The very first review of So Not The Drama by Booklist said that it included "fast, funny colloquial talk." Colloquial is a fancy term for - slang only some people understand. It also serves to drive copy editor's crazy because in some cases the english is broken on purpose - going against every fiber of their being and training.

I thought it might be nice to bring folks up to speed on the P'isms they're likely to see in my books or hear from my mouth:

Dag - No, this does not stand for David Allen Grier. The first time he was called that on Chocolate News, I was like - Who are they talking to? Dag is the term I grew up saying in place of "dang" or "darn." Eventually, because I got tired of explaining it, I changed it, in my books, to the customary "dang," despite really disliking that term.

I know, right? - For some reason, my lovely editor always wanted to change this phrase to "I know that's right." Umm...no, just "I know, right?" The term itself is self-explanatory and it's used much like "I know that's right," but it's meant to be spoken in the form of a question. In other words, questioning the obvious/questioning something you agree with.

Example: Person 1: Man, that test was mad hard. Person 2: I know, right?

Shoot - This can be used in place of "dag." They mean the same thing and it also means that obviously I'm a little bit country when it comes to my colloquial talk. I myself am much more likely to say "shoot" or "dag," in place of "damn." I don't think I've ever said "darn" in a serious conversation.

Namp! - Far as I know, I made this word up. It just came to me one day when I was reacting to something I was fierecely against. It means "oh hell, no." Or for fans of Whitney Houston, "hell to da naw."

I also, to my husband's utter annoyance, have a habit of naturally shortening words. Perhaps I'm lazy. I don't know. But it's nothing for me to use:

vibe - as in someone's phone is "vibin" in place of vibrating

vom - short for vomiting, of course

Chipolts - my favorite mex fast food joint, Chipotle. And techinically that's not shorter at all, but ya' know.

Contrary to popular belief, I actually can have a conversation without colloquial talk, slang or abbreviations. In fact, to prove that my vocab is actually pretty extensive, I'm the reason my friends started the five-letter rule on weekends. No words over five letters is allowed or you get a penalty. I've had many a flag thrown on me just for talking the way I normally do.

So yeah, you guys can't have it both ways!

But short talk is infectious. Despite my husband's standard WTF look as he tries to deceipher what I'm saying (or the grocery list where I go mad with abbrevs), one day we were cooking and he goes "Okay well let me just get a spatch."

What's that now? A spatch?!

That would be a spatula!

Being the person that I am, prone to taking the high road, I immediately gave him hell for it.