Too many syllables above, but I'm Making It My Own (anyone buying that?).

As you can see, I have a new vocal tic, completely stolen (accidentally) from Pamie and Patrick and Sarah Bunting. Whose phrases have you added to your repetoire? Did you notice when you did it?

-- Kymm Zuckert (hedgehog@hedgehog.net), September 03, 2000

Answers

Alas, I've developed the same vocal tic. I've managed to keep it out of my journal, and I try to only associate with people who don't read Pamie, Patrick, or Sarah. This way, they think I'm clever and original, instead of a pathetic copycat.

-- Beth (beth@xeney.com), September 03, 2000.

Actually, I decided to add "yo" to my vocabulary, inspired I think by Pamie and Jen of om mani padme hum. Now all my (non-journal-reading) friends comment on it. So I'm pleased.

-- Jessie (blue@avocation.org), September 03, 2000.

I work with WAY too many homeboys in their 20s to possibly get away with anything like that,they'd think that I was trying to copy them, and almost nothing would be more pathetic!

-- Kymm Zuckert (kymmz1@yahoo.com), September 03, 2000.

As I wandered away like a baby duck and laughing like a drain, I thought, I sure pick up a lot of that Kymm Zuckert's style, me.

Positively klepto about phrases in that way, my style is made up of tics and phrases picked up over the years. One of my favourite sayings was picked up from a woman who looked like a demure little OAP (old age pensioner), with the bob and the granny glasses and the tweed pastt the knee skirts) who told me the following story:

"I was sitting at the traffic light, waiting to make a left hand turn (Note, in Australia, left hand turns are the equivalent of the easy peasy US right hand turn, it's the one that's Not turning across traffic), in a single turning lane. This yob in a hoon car came up behind me and didn't appreciate the fact that I was in a Single lane, and the reason I wasn't turning is because cars were coming, so he tried to pass me in this single lane. I turned around to look at what he was doing, and he called me an old bitch. So I told him to go fuck himself sideways with a wire brush."

Needless to say I was rolling on the floor at this point, and have added this phrase to my lexicon.

-- Amanda Page (amanda@amandasprecipice.com), September 03, 2000.

Horking enthusiastically! That was such a great way of putting such a familiar sound that I laughed aloud.

This is something I get paranoid about as I read more and more journals. I know changes in my style will be inevitable, but I would hate for anyone to think I'd "stolen" a turn of phrase from them, no matter how inadvertant the theft.

One thing I've borrowed, unapologetically, is not from an online journaller, but from Dave Barry's columns: "I am NOT making this up" (following, of course, a tale so silly and absurd that it *has* to be made up). This always cracks me up, so it made its way into my own writing. I don't think it's his original phrase though, so it's in the public domain.

-- Catriona (catri696@purpleturtle.com), September 03, 2000.

One that I have gotten credit for is "Riding the ragged edge of disaster" but I actually got that from whatisname who writes Garfield, Jim Davis? Something like that. I told that to someone once and they were a little horrified that they liked a phrase from the guy who wrote Garfield!

-- Kymm Zuckert (kymmz1@yahoo.com), September 03, 2000.

I've developed the same tic as Patrick and Pamie, too, but I've managed to keep it mostly in my head. And I often find myself wanting to say "yo" at the end of a sentence, but I think I'm far too un-hip too pull it off...

-- Mary Ellen (sarcasticah@yahoo.com), September 04, 2000.

Greaty gobs of gorilla grunts, I am still laughing, with a wire brush -- side ways ? Hoots of laughter. Me -- an early Spoonerizer -- started when Mom and Dad teased me about something I said once and I didn't get it until they repeated back to me what I said. What I thought I said was, "I still do," what I had said was, "I stoo dill." Thus started me on the path of, "stunny fuff." I don't remember where I picked it up and maybe my application is not true to the original meaning, however, "Say What ? ? ?" has eased it's way in as an expression denoting disbelief in something just written or said that is so ridiculous that, "Say What ? ? ?" is the only humorous reply that is not insulting. The frantic manic, Denver doug

-- Denver doug (ionoi@webtv.net), September 04, 2000.

Speaking of spoonerisms, which only Doug was, a few weeks ago I was trying to untangle about a dozen wire hangers that were wrapped around one another on my closet bar. After a medium-length struggle I was gaining no ground and, grumbling to myself, shot out, "This is ricking defuckulous!" Then I burst out laughing. Then I got the hell out of the house because I was talking to myself and laughing at my own lingual clumsiness.

Anyway... I actually really dislike it when writers infect one another with little meme viruses. A while ago one journaller started using the phrase "I love me some [candy, kittens, whatever]," and within a couple of weeks I saw it in two other journals. And I only read eight journals, so that's saying something... Maybe it came from some other media source, but I've never heard anyone use it in person. One of the things I dislike about the Hissyfit forums is that I have a lot of trouble differentiating the writers because they've all infected one another with their phraseology. They all say "blah blah blah fishcakes,", refer to their significant others as "Mr. [Username]", call cats "catlets" -- it gets on my nerves. One of the great charms of the English language is the nigh-endless variety of ways to say the same old thing, and the reason certain word combinations such as "I love me some" strike us as funny is because of their uniqueness, which gets blunted and diluted through imitation.

-- Kim Rollins (kimrollins@yahoo.com), September 06, 2000.

I'm resisting the Reflexive of Enthusiasm described by Kim above, and if I had a significant other, I'd be resisting referring to him as The Boy. Gack. But I have not been able to resist saying "that rocks," even though I'm ten years too old to do so, and I can't resist Occasionally Capitalizing Things So They Look Like Old- Fashioned Headlines. So sue me for copyright violation.

-- Diana (diana@alum.mit.edu), September 06, 2000.

Pinging off the Hissyfit comment Kim made, I agree that there are a lot of writing tics that get perpetuated around those boards, but I actually like them. There are two reasons: first, picking up those phrases indicates that someone's been paying attention to the posting styles folks have, and has figured out the colloquial usages for everything; second, it reinforces something I studied in graduate school, namely that one way for online communities to self-identify and maintain that community label is to adopt a common vocabulary. Having gone deeply into debt for that M.S., I like being able to justify having it in some way, however small.

Then again, I've also been around Hissyfit long enough to remember when those phrases got introduced into the boards, so there's that hoary old-timer thing to consider.

Veering back to the subject at hand: I've passed phrases back and forth with my husband. When we went to see "The Skulls" one morning, a woman sitting three rows in front of us was apparently surprised enough at the ending to shriek "Uh mah Gawd!" and now, we both use her exact inflections to register mock dismay or surprise.

-- Lisa Schmeiser (lisa-nospam@schmeiser.com), September 06, 2000.

Long ago I picked up my best friend (ex-boyfriend, roommate)'s habit of, if you tell him "you are so x," (x being weird, annoying, etc.) answering, "I *am* so x." And then I learned, after meeting his first girlfriend, I realized that it was *her* vocal tic. So you should always be careful about these things.

-- Dorothy Rothschild (dorothyr@spies.com), September 06, 2000.

I made one of those Oldie Mcfartson comment a couple of weeks ago; and as I read neither Pammie's, nor Patrick's, nor Sarah's sites; I immediately attributed it to the beautifully simple minimalist humor of the Conan O'Brian show.

As far as vocal tics are concerned, I the one that is most ingrained in my head, is the "doot-de-doo" when my brain stalls. A friend in college reminded me of the typewriter on "The Electric Company"(I think) that used to type on itself and make sounds as it type. Right now, I can't even remember if the I do the right sounds, but whenever I stuck for a word instead of saying "um...", I say "doot-de-doo" because I picture in my head I typing the right word on my brian

-- johnnie seneris (johnnie@flaccid.com), September 06, 2000.

"I love me some ..." is an African-American (or maybe southern?) turn of phrase. I picked it up unconsciously from a coworker, as did several other people in the office. But I've also heard Oprah say it, so online journalers aren't necessarily stealing it from one another.

-- Beth (beth@xeney.com), September 06, 2000.

Okay, I asked the woman in my office who introduced me to the "I love me some ..." phrase, and she said it's an African American expression (she's African American), but she picked it up from the TV show In Living Color. The original version: "I love me some Miss Jenkins. But you didn't hear it from me, because I don't like to gossip."

So blame the Wayan brothers.

In my office, it's used to describe whatever you're eating for lunch. If, you know, you love it.

-- Beth (beth@xeney.com), September 07, 2000.

The first journaler I noticed using "I love me some" was stee. I just assumed everybody was copying him.

Thanks for the explanation, Beth.

-- Dave Van (davevan01@hotmail.com), September 07, 2000.

I thought Stee started it too. But, I was reading What Looks Like Crazy on an Ordinary Day this weekend and came across "...I love me some Ava". Of course it is "an Oprah book" and the characters are African-American, so maybe that is where Oprah picked it up (copyright date is 1997). It's only in there once though. It caught me by surprise when I ran across it.

-- Cecelia (cbbrandon@earthlink.net), September 10, 2000.

Well, In Living Color was on the air from 1990-1994. That's where the women in my office picked up the expression, and it's been used around my office since at least 1995 or 1996.

I think what's really amazing is that so many people never heard it before they read it in an online journal.

-- Beth (beth@xeney.com), September 12, 2000.

No Beth, now that you've jogged my memory I do remember hearing the expression on In Living Color. Rightly or wrongly I still get the impression that Stee popularized its use in journals. I never noticed you or anyone else using it until after Stee used it a few times.

Just like I never noticed anybody going Yo! until Pamie did it a few hundred times. Sure I've heard it before, but it didn't seem to get much usage in the journaling community until Pamie began using it.

-- Dave Van (davevan01@hotmail.com), September 12, 2000.

Re: the children's show typewriter

Actually, the show in question is Sesame Street, not Electric Company. And, a recent update to the Sesame Street Lyrics Archive has a listing of the typewriter skits. Enjoy.

-- Shmuel (shmuel@nycmail.com), September 14, 2000.

and the sound that the typewriter is making is Noonie-Noonie-Noo.

-- tango (tango@stratos.net), September 15, 2000.

I know that "It's a good thing!" is Martha Stewart, but is "it's all good" also Martha?

-- Diana (diana@alum.mit.edu), September 19, 2000.