#62 Scootchability

Words fascinate me. I guess because they are one of the great rulers by which we measure our changing culture. Slang in particular gives us a window into what was happening at any given time. “Nine-eleven” has shifted in our language from mere digits to a description of a watershed moment, as in “before nine-eleven”, and a comparison, as in, “It was as bad as nine-eleven” or “It scared me more than nine-eleven.” Unfortunately, it hasn’t quite made the complete transition. It still has regional or perhaps cognitive variability. Some people still say, “It hasn’t been like this since before nine-one-one,” or “That’s as bad as nine-one-one man.” An interesting case of an accidental similarity—9-11 the date and 9-1-1 the call for help—lodging in the consciousness as a exact match.
Some words break big but never quite linger on shore for long before they’re swept back into oblivion. As you may have noticed, no one gets “jiggy” anymore. I was never quite sure what getting “jiggy” was. Or even what one did to denote jiggy-ness. “Getting down” was something I could kind of understand, although getting down with something or someone was different than getting down on someone.
The word “Fat” now apparently changes meaning if one uses a “ph” instead of an “f.” Fair enough. Spelling is a good way to distinguish meaning. And it’s not used enough if you asked me. How can any foreigner appreciate the difference between read as in bead and read as in dead? Same with lead and lead (the metal). Or how about Polish the ethnicity and polish the shining ingredient? Spelled the same. I have a little bottle of liquid in my bathroom cabinet that an eastern European would think was invented by a Russian tsar. It says Polish Remover. I still remember when the Mariners were having a bad year and the fans all had T-shirts that said Refuse to Lose. Refuse the attitude and refuse the trash are spelled the same. Non-fans like me persisted in reading the T-shirt ref-use to lose.
So if you want to call someone something nice by calling them phat with a ph that’s fine. Just make sure you have pen and paper handy to clarify before the slap comes your way. Or maybe you could just text message the compliment to be safe.
I have a new word. Scootchability. The other day I went to Google maps. “Google maps” is a cool new thing. When you go to Google maps dot com, your computer will suddenly become a satellite window on the world. Type in any address or landmark. Say, the Space Needle. A map will appear. Change from the map to the satellite image. Then zoom in. See that mole on the baby’s butt? Well, it’s not that close. But what’s really cool is when you want to move up or down or left or right, the image follows effortlessly. The older versions of this technology were really slow as you’d wait for the new maps to load. They didn’t have near the Scootchability. With this program and a broadband connection it’s nearly seamless. You can scootch left and right and north and south. You can scootch all over the world. And that’s the skinny on how phat that is, dude.
America, ya gotta love it.