7 Things You Totes Need To Stop Saying if You're Over 30 (oops, there's one of them)

UPDATE: Apparently I should have added the term "butthurt" to this list. Because there's a world of hurt butts out there. People, this is not a serious post. It was meant to be read tongue-in-cheek, in a very non-serious way. Some of you need to unclench, just a little. mkay? 



A lot of us are guilty of it. Especially those of us with teens, or tweens, or kids of any age who watch kid-centric television shows or who spend a lot of time on Instagram.

We start to talk like them. Words, phrases, the flotsam and jetsam of another generation's vernacular seeps into ours and before you know it, we catch ourselves (or our friends) dropping these little beauties into everyday conversation, facebook updates, blog posts and tweets.

Someone needs to step in now, and beg of us all: STOP IT. For the love of all things good and pure and age-appropriate, please stop.

Here are the things you need to stop saying if you are over the age of 30. Or if you have a mortgage, or a job that comes with benefits. Or if you have teens. Especially, if you have teens.

1.  TOTES.  When used as an abbreviation for the word "totally", of course. If someone approaches you on a rainy day and says "Hey, I love that cute, compact umbrella! What kind is it?" and you answer, "Totes!", it's all good. But when you walk into the the living room and announce, "Dinner is totes ready!", not so good. Please stop.

2. I KNOW, RIGHT? Last summer I spent a week subbing with a beautiful, tanned, Amazonian 20-something with a beach-volleyball player's body. She was sweet, but answered everything with the words, "I know, right?". I'd walk into the classroom and say, "Holy crap is it hot out" and Tall Tan One would say, "I know, right?". I'd say "Thank God it's Friday!" and she'd look up from the Dora the Explorer Puzzle she was working on and say, "I know, right?".

Yes, I do know. Right. Because I JUST SAID IT.

Now, despite my holier than thou approach to speaking, somehow this virus-like phrase started slipping out of my own mouth. I was horrified by the ease at which it popped out, usually in response to a friend's innocent, middle aged statement along the lines of "I'm so sick of peeing my pants." Only I shortened it, and dropped the questioning nature...and in my head it sounded more like a clipped, British, Colin Firth-ish "right, then" instead of the other way. My head was wrong. It still sounded lame.

3. AMAZEBALLS And while we're at it, let's retire "amazing" for a while, too. "That pumpkin latte was amazeballs!" or "That meatloaf was amazing." No. Nobody really needs to walk around saying the word "balls" except for gym teachers and coaches and boys between the ages of 7 and 15. And the word amazing has been stuck in my craw since my homegirl Nina Badzin wrote about how it's being overused as a compliment. BECAUSE EVERYTHING ISN'T AMAZING. Sometimes it's really good. Sometimes it's yummy. Sometimes it's just so-so. We have so many adjectives in the English language. Let's dust some of the lesser-knowns off and use them for a while.

(and yes, oh the irony of the 47 year old blogger using the word "homegirl"...I almost typed "home-skillet" which would have been even more sad. Amazingly so.)

4. CRAY (OR CRAY-CRAY).  Crazy just sounds better. Or one of the ten million synonyms for crazy. I like a good "crazier than a shithouse rat" but I can't say that when I'm surrounded by 5 year olds. So I oftentimes use "whackadoo". When I hear you say "cray" I think you were going to talk about either crayons and had a brain freeze or else Robert Cray, who happens to be a pretty badass blues guitarist.

You might say he has some cray cray skills.

5. I WILL CUT YOU/ I WILL CUT A BITCH  No, you won't. You're sitting behind the wheel of a Honda Odyssey, you have groceries from Costco melting in the back and you're in the parent pick-up line at school. You're not a character in Orange is the New Black. You're not going to be cutting anyone any time soon so please stop saying you will.

6. ADORBS Are you saying this with any sort of frequency at all? Are you 14 and talking about your BFF's new Harry Styles iPhone case? If the answer to my first question was yes and the answer to my second question was no, then this word needs to stop coming out of your mouth.

7. INTERNETS/INTERWEBS I'm guilty of using this one. And I have no rational explanation for doing so. If we call it Internets does that make it cooler? If we call it what it truly is, "the internet" does that make us sound stodgy and old? I guess it probably does, because who really uses the word "internet" anymore? "Mom, I'm going to access The Internet and get some homework done!" or "Billy, I was using The Internet to look at your grades on Infinite Campus. We need to talk."

Okay, so maybe 7 could use some tweaking. But like that funny lady on YouTube says, "ain't nobody got time for that." Oh! And the word tweaking reminds me of one other thing we should all stop saying:

8. TWERK/TWERKING I know it's kind of ironic when a middle aged mom uses the word "twerk", like when she threatens to start twerking in front of her kid's friends, but honestly, I think the closest any of us are going to come to twerking is that spastic thing our bodies do when we see a big bug in the shower.  Like a centipede. Augh.

That's all I've got. I was going to add that thing where people refer to cats as "kittehs" but that one is over now, right?

If you need me, I'll be channeling Gretchen Wieners from Mean Girls and trying to make "fetch" happen.

Did you get big mad feels after reading this? Then you need to A: pull the stick out of your nether-regions and then B: READ THIS