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Thursday, August 21, 2008

Verbs of the New Millenium


by Elodia Strain


So, I’ve been thinking about how if my seventh-grade self were plopped into a modern middle school she would have no earthly clue what was going on. Case in point, the following conversation featuring a ton of “verbs of the new millennium”:

“So I friended you on MySpace.”
“Hold on, I’m texting my boyfriend.”
“Did you tell him I burned that new Nelly song?”
“No. But I did tell him you Netflixed every episode of The Office known to man.”
“It’s my favorite show! Did he download those pictures of Nikki?”
“Yes. And he said he Googled you too and found a picture of you and the swim team.”
“Ugg! I wish I could have Photoshopped my thighs in that picture.”
“Don’t worry, he says he’s only gonna blog about it a few times this week.”
“If he does, I’m so going to erase all those episodes of Deal or No Deal he TiVo’d at my house!”
“He said that wasn’t him, it was your dad! But don’t erase them…just in case.”
“Uh huh.”

Middle-school me would have a seriously spinning head after that conversation!

It’s absolutely crazy to me how the technological revolution has added a whole slew of words—verbs, nouns, adjectives—to the English language.

Have any you’d like to add to the little list I started above? Post them in the comments. Let’s see how many we can come up with!

3 comments:

Marcia Mickelson said...

I like how you turned all those terms into verbs. I'm just glad I understood all of them. I'm still with it!

I can't think of any off hand, but I'll keep thinking and see if I can comment later.

Melanie Jacobson said...

I don't know about verbs, but the word "iPod" would have sounded eerily futuristic.

Oh, I know. If someone said they IM'd me, I probably would have felt mild alarm.

Tamra Norton said...

I hear these phrases from my kids all the time. Cracks me up.

And on similar lines, it's funny the different variations of "attractive" there are. Back when I was in school, if a guy was good looking, he was a "fox." Serious. I guess today the term is "hot." What will it be tomorrow?