The words we choose make all the difference. For example, if one of the Novack employees milling about behind the counter finally turns to me and asks, "What can I get for you?" I merely say, "A large coffee with soymilk and a bottle of water and also a large cup of ice and this Vitamin Water, please."
However, if a Novack employee chooses their words slightly differently, and asks me, "How can I help you?" I find myself requesting a dirty martini, straight-up with a twist of vicodin, and make that four olives -- this being breakfast, after all.
You see, there is a vast disparity between what Novack "can do for me" and what would actually be "helpful." But this canyon between civility and depravity is easily bridged each day -- and just as easily breached -- by language.
Consider sex. Somewhere after freshman year my friends* and I set sail for an austere New World where our puritanical lexicon reigns free: We have buried every sexual act under a rock called "kissing." Kissing is all, and all is kissing. It's a euphemism for everything from boning to braining, which are euphemisms for you know what.
I might say, "Judith, did you kiss brother John Smith last night?"
Judith might reply, "Nay, though I shined my buckles and donned my new habit, I fear he kissed some lacrosse-stitute in a politically-incorrect Pocahontas outfit, which she has not yet learned to pre-crucify herself for wearing, sigh."
"Oh," I might say. "Rats."
Alas. It has come to my attention that we are now living in the age of '12 girls who call themselves "lax-stitutes." How flattering! You can even mix and match monosyllabics to find the "stitute" that's just for you. Watch me work magic with my prosto-biography: Once I was the boss-stitute of all the frosh-stitutes, but now I am a frost-stitute (slutty, but bitter) becoming a washed-stitute (still slutty, but with no one left to accost-stitute). Though hyphenating words is probably the closest I'll come to kissing someone this week, there was a time when everyone I knew was "seeing" each other, which seemed appropriately poetic.
"They're seeing each other" meant they were basically dating.
Or, "I just saw so and so talking to so and so" meant "I think your slampiece is getting away."
Slampiece! Now there was a brief regression down the crudeness ladder that I actually supported. Until it became shortened and verbified: "to slam." I do not mind objectifying people or likening them to equipment; in fact if one were to holler "Slampiece, get over here!" in the 1902 Room, I would probably come running out of brain-addled habit. However, slampiece should never be abbreviated to "Who are you slamming these days?"
In fact, nothing should be abbreviated, ever. A lady member of the '12 class recently interrupted my impression of a beached whale at Collis Late Night to inform me of the latest, textually derivative sex acronyms. I warn you I am about to reprint them, so high-minded aesthetes, shield your eyes: DTF = Down To Fck; RTF = Ready To Fck; and DFM = Dance Floor Make-out.
Ugh, stop, or I will beat you over the head with my wooden clogs that were a screwvenire from some Dutch man. Yes, "screwvenire," I am adopting. It's a) anything left behind in the aftermath of kissing, or b) someone you kissed merely for their cachet. But please, all you little lost-stitutes: Sht is already so fcked up, as is. Let's not use acronyms, which only serve to remind us of how abbreviated our version of reality really is. Let's just kiss.
Oh and one last thing. The ultimate kissing lingo faux pas: The Royal We. If you say, "Oh we're just staying in tonight," I will assume that you have a date with a bottle of Nyquil. I don't know what the other possibilities are. I can't even imagine.
