Monday, September 8, 2008

Expressions that interest me

If I knew more about literature, or social-anything, I would probably already know what to call these phrases that follow, or know where to find them in a more inclusive text.  But I don't.  So I'll amuse myself by recording them here.



"I know, right?"
I'm not exactly sure what this is even supposed to mean.  It's a statement, followed by a question that nobody except the asker would be capable of answering!  I'm sure it's been around in an incidental form for as long as English has been around, but in the last year or two it seems to have exploded.  I have people texting it to me, and even hear it in movies.

"[Name] Mc[Name, same or similar to previous]."
e.g.: "Stinky McStinkerson" or "Stupid McUglyface"
I still contend that *I* made this up.  I've been using it for years, and had never heard anyone else use it until relatively recently.  If my pre-college journal hadn't been eaten up in a server crash disaster, I would probably have proof.

"He [verb, present tense] [verb, past participal]."
e.g.: "He needs beaten-down" or "They need whupped!"
I am pretty sure that this simply comes down to the removal of the words "to be" from any statement with an auxiliary verb.  (Though I do recall noting a few uses where that general rule didn't fit quite right.)

This construction was something I'd absolutely never heard before moving to Ohio for college.  In my dorm suite, it was frequently invoked in terms of punishment, but I've heard it use more generically by others, as well.  Returning to the West, after college, I heard it much less, but still did occasionally hear someone bust it out in the middle of otherwise grammatically correct statements.

"Hell yeah, Godsmack."
Ok, I can only attribute this one to my friend, Chris.  I have no idea where it came from, and have no intention of asking him.  It sounds too manufactured to be original.  All I know is any situation that merits vehement agreement, he'll respond with that phrase.

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