Uncool Words

Some words are inher­ently cool. Like gor­gonzola. But some words are not so lucky. Be it through time or an unfor­tu­nate cir­cum­stance there are some words that exist today that are quite sim­ply uncool. Here, by my reck­on­ing, are a few of them. Feel free to dis­agree with me or add your own uncool words below.

BLOCKBUSTER

The block­buster is not what it used to be. And even if it is, it cer­tainly isn’t itself any­more. What I mean to say, is that with Block­buster (the one time mam­moth video chain) head­ing for bank­ruptcy in the United States, the word block­buster has become syn­ony­mous with finan­cial ruin, Amer­i­can crap­pi­ness and things that your Dad remem­bers fondly. Put sim­ply, block­buster = old and uncool.

As such movies, books, TV shows, movies, comics and movies have slowed the use of the word block­buster as a buzz word to cre­ate hype and embed ridicu­lously high expec­ta­tions in audiences.

As a result when peo­ple describe a movie as being a block­buster these days, it’s prob­a­bly just your Dad talk­ing. About Star Wars.

KEWL

I was using gmail chat the other day when I needed to reply to my sis­ter with some vari­ety of an affir­ma­tive inter­jec­tion. I went for kewl since I’m aware of using cool on IM too much. My lovely sis­ter was quick to dress me down for my choice. Appar­ently kewl became grossly unkewl around the time Kool Mints stopped being sold in tins.

Any­way, I apol­o­gised to my sis­ter and typed lots of paren­the­ses and semi-colons to her and she was happy.

SUDDENLY

Sud­denly is as uncool now as it was twenty years ago. It indi­cates that some­thing of inter­est is upon us, with­out being inter­est­ing at all. This is why my fourth grade teacher banned me from using it in my story writ­ing. It may have been the pas­sage “Sud­denly they kids stood up. Sud­denly they were amazed to see a bear com­ing their way. Sud­denly there was the bear. Sud­denly they were scared of being eaten by the bear. Sud­denly they slowly crept away” that pushed her over the edge.

Like they say in writ­ing school, ‘Show don’t tell’. Which is long­hand for ‘Never use suddenly’.

MATE

Because Kevin Rudd says it.

2009

This one is kind of unfair because this time next year 2010 will be the uncool word. But for now it’s the word 2009 that is asso­ci­ated with things of yes­ter­year and thus the things of uncool.

‘OMG that is so 2009’ a mod­ern teenager might say. Actu­ally a truly mod­ern teenager would prob­a­bly say ‘It is so 2009 to say “OMG”’. None the less, to describe some­thing as being very 2009 is to make a very dis­parag­ing com­ment indeed.

The other thing worth keep­ing in mind is that even when 2011 ticks around, 2009 won’t become instantly cool again. It takes time for these things to regain their cool. Appar­ently 1983 has been wait­ing for more than twenty years.