A Change To The Lexicon

A Change To The Lexicon

In:

Fuck that Noise

Yeah, I know it's not new. We had a meeting yesterday, and when it came to discussing what we were having for lunch, I said that I was thinking about going up the street to the Subway.

"Fuck that noise!" one of the managers said. "You're coming with us to get real food."

For the whole rest of the day, that little phrase was running through my head. Like I said, it's not new. But I'd never heard it used so effectively as that guy whose name I never caught used it. If I can use it a third as well as he did, then I'm doing alright.

You've probably guessed by now that I spent most of the rest of the day thinking of situations and scenarios that involved me proclaiming "Fuck that Noise!"

A brief note: That's a real "special occasion" type of phrase. At least for me. I feel like if that's something you broke out more than a couple or three times, especially in a short period of time, it's one that might wear out its welcome quicker than Jesse Jackson can get in front of a TV camera.

Out:

"In the Wheelhouse" (var: In My Wheelhouse; In Your Wheelhouse)

I don't know why this phrase bothers me. But it does.

It's not the phrase so much as the people who use it. It's mostly frat guys and the sport guys who use it. Guys who don't want to sound girlish and/or out themselves as actually having a real vocabulary by saying the word "repertoire."

The phrase was bothering me before yesterday, when it was likewise used at the meeting I went to. Before the last little while, I can't recall hearing it outside of a baseball broadcast, specifically an Atlanta Braves radio or TV broadcast, where it's a favorite phrase of both Don Sutton and Joe Simpson.

It's one of those phrases that just kind of started showing up everywhere. On Sportscenter, where I heard Sean Salisbury using it. In that Comedy Central look at the 40-Year-Old Virgin movie. I heard a guy at the store using it the other day.

I admit that shis is exactly the same as the time you learn a new word, and in that moment of synchronicity, that word seems to show up 19 times over the next few days. Now, I'm sure that people have been referring to the repertoire as "the wheelhouse" for a while. And I've only recently started noticing it.

To my mind, that's no excuse. Use of this phrase must stop.

It also came up at the meeting yesterday. I think that's what's set me off. We were supposed to have certain things "in our wheelhouse" on a day to day basis.

Now, I'm not about to leave you with this huge gaping hole in your vocabulary by telling you to delete this phrase from your lexicon.

From now on, when you don't want to say "repertoire," and feel pressed to use the whole "wheelhouse" phrase, I want you to say "bananarama."

Yeah.

From now on, your ability to hammer nails (for instance) is not something you just have in your wheelhouse.

Your hammering ability is something you carry in your bananarama.

So. When you're in a conversation, and somebody pulls some of that "in my wheelhouse" crap, you say "Fuck that noise! You say Bananarama!"

You'd probably better headbutt them. Just to drive that point home.

Unless they're Samoan. Then just kick them in the nuts.