Fighting the Trend

Spotting These Types Could Be Simplicity Itself

The time has come to put a stop to these dang trendy phrases. Every year and a half or so, a new crop of them pops up: "fiscal cliff," "YOLO," "kick the can down the road," "spoiler alert," "bucket list."  These, of course, are already beginning to wither and die and a new ones are no doubt ready for harvest, so all the bubble-heads can ape sophistication and sparkling intelligence instead of appearing the dullards they truly are.

Incredible as it seems, there are actually people out there who mine other's conversations to glean the next trendy phrase, which they will then work into conversations of their own even if they have to twist the topic around like a pretzel.  Have you ever seen one of these people misuse a trendy word and become conscious of it?  His face will deflate a little, like a punctured soccer ball, his eyes lose their sheen.  He'd hoped to surprise and impress, and  instead his little mot juste fell flat.

The problem is, Trendy-Word Junkies camouflage themselves so effectively that you can't tell you've run across one until it's too late.  You might stray into the midst of a whole pack of them and become infected yourself!

What I propose is that we scientifically discover the source trendsetters, the bull moose, or alpha-dogs, or lead geese, or whatever you call it, the people who start these words rolling and have such influence that others follow them like clouds of gnats.  These individuals themselves probably do not know who they are but will have to be located using sophisticated observation, GPS systems, and infra-red goggles.  I will leave this part to the science boys.

Once we've got the ring-leaders, we deliberately infect them with bogus trend-phrases and if possible, convince them that for maximum effect, these phrases should be accompanied by stamping feet and an audible fart.  I think with hypnosis and psychotropic drugs, this would be easy to accomplish.  Finally we release them into the wild, where they go forth to infect their fellows.  Now spotting these types will be simplicity itself and one can escape before permanent damage.

BOB: Hi, Man.
MAN: Hey, Bob.
BOB: Say, did you see the  new series on Netflix.  It is totally rowzer-schnauzer.  (Stomp stomp.  Poot.)
MAN: Oops, got to go.  I'm expecting an urgent call from Lord Knows Who.

And an innocent person is saved.