LMIRL, nah I’d rather not!

I’m a lover of words and phrases and good punctuation. I love how they give us structure but evolve to meet our changing needs. For instance, I love how we’ve created “Adulting,” “Doomscrolling,” and “Super-spreader” to explain modern-day, 21^st century life.

• Adulting: the practice of behaving in a way characteristic of a responsible adult, especially the accomplishment of mundane but necessary tasks.
• Doomscrolling: a recent term that describes the obsessive urge to scroll via a smart phone or tablet through negative news. 
• Super-spreader: an event or location at which a significant number of people contract the same communicable disease — often used before another noun (as in a “super-spreader event”).

Some changes, though, make no sense to me. Here’s some words and grammar usages that I’m not a fan. 

—Shortening the word “America” to “‘Merica.” Just stop. It’s the U.S., USA, or America. What the hell is ‘Merica? I suspect the shortening is an attempt to poke fun of rural America or even urban street life, but I’ve got to say: I know no one who says this. It’s just a bad t-shirt slogan.

—I have no problems with slang entering our lexicon, but I have issues with LMIRL, as in “let’s meet in real life” becoming a common term. My issue is that it’s common, but not something you see every day. I draw a blank every time I see it and have to look it up when it comes across my screen. I wonder too about the meaning of “real life.” I thought I was living it. What’s this other make-believe-virtual life?

—The word Dad bod. Of course, the dad bod is an informal way of referring to the physique of the average father; especially one that is slightly overweight and not extremely muscular. The word has showed up everywhere, it’s in meme after meme, social media, in songs, it seems to be everywhere. C’mon on now, us dads have feelings too. We’re all crying on the inside. Okay, okay, I could actually care less about the term, but I do care about how much the word has become a tired cliché. It’s overused, has run its course, and hurts my ears!

I won’t be on any select committees adding any new words in 2023 to the Mirriam-Webster Dictionary or the Oxford English Dictionary, but I’m hoping they take my suggestions. If they do come calling, I have a few more words to eliminate — moist, maggot, chunky, clogged, come quickly to mind.

Yes, let’s get it done.