A Single Word

I am really, really good at Scrabble…

A friend of mine suggested, if I couldn’t think of anything to write about, I should start with a single word*.  Like the first step toward sobriety, he said it would be a catalyst – a spark to the verbal genus that eludes.

The problem with that approach for me, is that there are too many words to choose from.  When I try to think of a single word, I sit like Rainman at a Blackjack table: a blank face, words and punctuation marks flashing in a cartoon cloud over my head.

I decided to start with words I dislike.

If anyone uses the word serendipitous, I instantly dislike them (for so many reasons).  Plethora and its snooty synonym paucity, rankle. Vis-à-Vis is acceptable, I guess, when written in a business document, but when someone says it aloud I hate them.  When someone playfully calls their umbrella a bumbershoot, I want to shoot them.

Recently, I’ve begun to dislike the word normie.  Spell check is telling me it’s not a word, but I hear it used a lot, when recovering alcoholics refer to their non-drinking counterparts.  For example, one might say, “I was at a party with a bunch of normies and they kept trying to serve me booze,”  or “My sister is a normie.”

I don’t like the word “normie” because it implies drinkers who don’t suffer alcohol’s ill effects, are somehow better and saner than recovering alcoholics.  In fact, they’re just able to drink better.  They might be chock-full of other abnormalities.

The Urban Dictionary defines “normie” as: People without mental illness. Derivation of “Normal”.  I used to be one of the normies, but now I have “The D” (depression).

Reading the above definition makes me realize I also hate it when people use diminutives like: perp, or the “D”.

*Thanks Nick, it worked!