My First Post of 2024 Deals With Words that "Hit Different" are "Cool" or Don't Make Sense or are Out of Use

Florence Pugh -- because it's her birthday

People talk about how such and such “hits different” but you never hear about anything that “hits the same.” Why is that? I want an answer to this and other questions in 2024. That’s a weird one, twenty twenty-four. My goodness 2014 sounds so futuristic and that was ten frickin’ years ago. For that matter 2004 sounds like science fiction and that was 20 years ago. Twenty. People turning 21 this year were born in 2003. That’s ridiculous. I’m still getting used to the early 1990s. My god that’s ancient history. Virtually no one was on the internet in the early nineties. People weren’t walking around staring at their phones. In fact anyone staring at a phone in 1994 would have been certifiable. (Does anyone say certifiable anymore? I mean, I just did but does anyone else?)

People don’t get “bent out of shape” anymore. I’m glad. I found it disconcerting to see people bent over in such a fashion that they simultaneously were out of shape.

I almost started the preceding sentence as follows: “Personally, I found it…” I’m a good enough editor to have caught that. Most people don’t. You often see or hear people write or say, “personally I…” What’s the point of the “personally”? It serves no purpose. It’s like announcements on public transportation that tell you to check for your “personal belongings.” In other words, the heck with your impersonal belongings. Screw anything you’ve brought from work that isn’t yours, just look for that personal stuff. 

Just. Talk about overused words. Example: “I just want to say.” How about “I want to say”?  Another example: “I’ll just have coffee.” It’s okay to say: “I’ll have coffee.” The added just makes it sound like you’re apologizing for only having coffee. Just say what you mean. Er, say what you mean. 

In sports you often hear that “there’s no love lost” between two opponents.” Fair enough. But why do we never hear that there is indeed love lost? And what the hell does it mean? 

By the way I can do without being told someone is “a class act.” Or even worse that someone is “good people.” A “good person” would be acceptable.

This part of the year is less stressful in greeting acquaintances. You don’t have to worry about whether they celebrate Christmas, Hanukah, Kwanzaa or the Winter Solstice. You can abandon the wishy washy Happy Holidays and say: Happy New Year. No one is offended by being wished a happy new year. Are they? Goodness maybe that’s off limits for some people like those who use other calendars like the Bengali, the Discordian, Babylonian or the Ethiopian. Gadzooks!

Today if you’re say you’re sore it’s likely that there’s an area of the body that hurts a bit, maybe the result of vigorous exercise or doing some unexpected heavy lifting. But in days of yore being sore could mean you were angry about something. You hear it in old movies and even some TV shows of the past. It had pretty much faded away by the time I was a kid. But I was asked once if I was sore (as in angry) and this was when I was twenty-two years old. The person who posed the question must have been a time traveler from the forties (they had time machines then that were discontinued and we somehow don’t know about?). I didn’t know him well at all and strongly suspect I never saw him again. As it turns out I wasn’t “sore.”

Also no longer in use is “shove off.” Similarly people rarely “take off.” I don’t think that people “split” much anymore. We just to “leave” or “go.” 

Do parents or tell kids to “pipe down” anymore? Probably not. They will say, “listen up.” This raises a question: what the heck is the word "up" doing? Can’t you just ask someone to “listen”? I would think so. 

Today in sports players are “coached up.” Don’t get that one either. When I played we were simply “coached.”

This has been a blast — hold on, does anyone describe fun experiences as being “a blast” anymore? Maybe not. I know that "keen" is gone. (Although in England you can be "keen" on something -- but that's different). Keen ended around the time I started high school along with “boss.” Cool has persisted. It’s nearly been 100 years now that it has been used as a slang term for something very good or different in a positive way. That’s pretty cool.