Ho

A few days ago, when I went poking around Blogger for an available blogspot name, I was disappointed to see that my original name of choice – worddiary.blogspot.com – was already taken. I wasn't entirely surprised: 'worddiary' is not terribly creative. For someone who has such a fondness for meaning-bearing morphemes, I sure have a tricky time forcing appropriate words to come to mind.

I didn't take Blogger's alternate suggestions of 'bpw_worddiary' or 'bpwsworddiary' (creative!) nor did I check the availability of the version that appears on the masthead here. Instead, I thought, "Who got to 'worddiary' before me? Who dares to love words more than me? Who also cannot think of a better title? I must know!"

I journeyed over to worddiary.blogspot.com, and let me tell you: the writer is a total ho. A 'word ho', to be precise – her words, not mine. Her last post, which also happens to be her second post, describes her word ho-ing, if you're interested. She hasn't blogged since 05/05/05, yet 'worddiary' remains unavailable.

On an unrelated note: while Word Ho was word-ho-ing that day, I was on Fort Myers Beach drinking a crap-ton of tequila. ¡Viva Cinco de Mayo!

Anyway, seeing "Diary of a Word Ho" at the top of her page got me thinking about the world of hos – word, improperly punctuated, nappy-headed, and otherwise. Yesterday, I mentioned words that crop up in different contexts in rapid succession; oddly, this has been a hoey week.

For example, I finished reading Things That Make Us [Sic] this week. Toward the end, I read about a pet peeve of mine: wanton apostrophe usage. The author stated that when creating art, one needn't abandon conventions of grammar, and she specifically called out hos. It's just as easy to rap about more than one ho, sans apostrophe, as it is to boast of slapping an apostrophe on those ho's (ick). For the record, it's hos, not ho's (unless we're talking about the singular possessive
ho, in which case ho's is correct. Don't forget the plural possessive hos' in case they decide to form a union and demand rights), and I'm glad the Society for the Promotion of Good Grammar agrees with me. Hos may look kind of goofy, but, darn it, it's properly punctuated.

Another way to punctuate 'ho' is with a hyphen and the word 'bag', as in ho-bag. Now, this construction may not be in the OED*, but, man, is it ever an appropriate term for "woman in a too-short dress who is not only loud, obnoxious, and probably coked up, but who also can't seem to stop running into my chair." I got to bandy ho-bag about several times in conversation with my companion on New Year's Eve. Copious booze, blow, and noisemakers can morph even the nicest girls into ho-bags. Like I said, it's been a hoey week.

When I happened on the Word Ho diary, I started thinking more about this little word. Remember when Don Imus combined it with "nappy-headed" to insult the Rutgers University women's basketball team? Wow, Imus, way to pack in so much racism and sexism into three little words. Ugly, ugly, ugly.

Having said that, I ask you not to judge me for the confession I'm about to make: after the Imus incident, I couldn't stop calling my dog a "nappy-headed ho" – as in, "Who's my cute little nappy-headed ho? You're my cute little nappy headed-ho!" I couldn't help it; the phrase has a touch of alliteration and a certain cadence that makes it kind of fun to say. I know I shouldn't perpetuate such hateful notions, but my dog doesn't mind.

What I like most about this particular usage of 'ho' (as opposed to the triple 'ho' Santa exclaims) is that it gives the OED occasion to give the following example of usage:

1994 Straight No Chaser Summer 17/1 It's fat like a $20 ho sittin' on yo face.

Top that, Shakespeare.

*Although the OED doesn't include it, The Urban Dictionary has entries for ho-bag that do not include the hyphen. Since their user-submitted definitions and usage examples are seldom properly punctuated and/or spelled, I'm going to pretend like they don't exist. Ho-bag is hyphenated in my universe.

Separate

Separate is a word that often appears on "frequently misspelled words" lists. Thanks to Mrs. Houghton, my 10^th grade English teacher, I am incapable of misspelling separate. Also thanks to her, I can recite every preposition, alphabetically, from memory. This talent comes in handy…never.

That year, we read John Knowles' A Separate Peace. One day in class, Mrs. Houghton distributed Scantrons –those multiple choice answer sheets that are scored via computer – for a quiz on the book. After giving us a moment to write our names on the test, Mrs. Houghton gave the following directions:

"At the bottom of your answer sheet, write the letters S, E, P."

Not knowing where this was going, we followed her directions.

"Now write a plus sign."

Okay…

"Write the letter A in large print."

I never knew writing at the bottom of a Scantron didn't prevent it from being scored…

"Write another plus sign."

Certainly…

"Now draw a picture of a rat."

Huh? All of the students snickered a little. I drew the best little rat I could in the skinny margin of the Scantron. Big ears, whiskers, creepy tail.

"Write another plus sign, followed by the letter E, followed by a peace sign."

Ahhh, sep-a-[drawing of a rat]-e. Separate. The book we were reading was A Separate Peace, not A Seperate Peace, or A Separet Piece, or any other kind of peace, is what Mrs. Houghton wanted to impress on us. By this point, she had read several essays from our class about the book and had seen this word bungled enough to make us break Scantron rules. That Mrs. Houghton, such a wild one.

Wild, and effective, too. In the ensuing 14 years, I've never misspelled separate and I still can't write the word without thinking of a big hairy rodent. Thanks, Mrs. H.

Y2KX

Today seems like as good a day as any to start blogging again. I mean, I don't really buy into the whole "new year, new you"/the-turning-of-the-clock-from-31-December-to-1-January-really-means-something…thing. However, two recent run-ins with pop culture have lit a fire under my behind:

1. I watched Julie & Julia. Yes, I'm aware that the odds of me being featured in the New York Times are, let's say, fairly slim; I'm not blogging for notoriety. I like the idea of committing myself to a single project, just as Julie Powell did. Being a commitment-phobe, I thought initiating my own blogging project might be a good way to turn over a new leaf/kick off this totally arbitrary point in time.
   
2. I read Things That Make Us [Sic]. It was a Christmas gift from my mom, who knows me so very well. My degree is in linguistics and I am a geek when it comes to words, so a book about grammar is a treat indeed. I write down words I like/have never heard/can't stand on scraps of paper and hoard them like Little Edie and Big Edie collect cats and raccoons. I have a problem. I hope this blog serves as free therapy for me.
   

What do I intend to do here? Profile words, mainly – words that I like, words that have significance to me, words that keep me up at night, words that pop up in conversation (do you ever learn a new word and then hear it over and over again within a short period of time? Freaky, no?), words that I would strike from the lexicon were I to be endowed with such word-striking powers. Now, that would be a special treat.

I hope you join me on this journey of self-discovery and sexual awakening [sorry, that's a different blog] to where, I don't know. Until I consult GoogleMaps and figure out where we're going, meet my inaugural word, courtesy of Urban Dictionary, which lists the word as 2KX. I added the "Y" because I'm a little nostalgic for the Y2K hysteria; also, I had more technological mishaps last night at midnight than I did 10 years ago at midnight. Anyone else receive all text messages in duplicate? Is it just me whom AT&T decided to rip off when the clock struck 12?

Back to 2KX:

"An abbreviation of the year 2010 from the Roman numerical system (K meaning 1000 and X meaning 10). Dude, it's 2KX next year!"

Don't you agree that adding a "Y" dresses up this word a little bit? Either way, this word remains one I am unlikely to utter for it sets an ugly precedent for future years. Do we really want to walk around saying, "Dude, it's (Y)2KXVIII!"in eight years?