Better World Books Blog - Book Reviews, Author Interviews, Community Outreach & more » Anti Word of the Week http://blog.betterworldbooks.com Book reviews, author interviews, industry news and more from the online bookstore with a soul. Thu, 09 Feb 2012 14:33:43 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.2 2009-2010 elevin@betterworldbooks.com (Better World Books Podcast with Dana Barrett) elevin@betterworldbooks.com (Better World Books Podcast with Dana Barrett) Books 1440 http://blog.betterworld.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/07/podcast-small.jpg Better World Books Blog - Book Reviews, Author Interviews, Community Outreach & more http://blog.betterworldbooks.com 144 144 Dana Barrett of Better World Books sits down with the giants and upcoming stars of the literary world. Better World Books Dana Barrett sits down with the current and upcoming stars of the literary world. books, authors, novels, news, writing, literature, humor, Better World Books Podcast with Dana Barrett Better World Books Podcast with Dana Barrett elevin@betterworldbooks.com no no Anti Word of the Week: Whatev http://blog.betterworldbooks.com/2009/01/09/anti-word-of-the-week-whatev/ http://blog.betterworldbooks.com/2009/01/09/anti-word-of-the-week-whatev/#comments Fri, 09 Jan 2009 23:32:09 +0000 Jack http://blog.betterworld.com/?p=3303 No, I did not forget to include the end of that word. Today’s anti word of the week is “whatev.” Sometimes you’ll hear it as “whatevs” or sometimes it will be merely represented on your phone as “wtvr.” Regardless of which version you encounter, you can be sure of a few things:

-You don’t want to hang out with the person who wrote it/said it if you’re looking for a real conversation
-Your interaction can only get worse from here

The worst part though, of this insidious-when-abbreviated pronoun, is that it complete fails to offer you a real response. For example:
“Hey, which movie do you want to go to, The Curse of Benjamin Button or Slumdog Millionaire?”
“Whatev.”
“Well, I heard they’re both good, but which one are you more interested in?”
“Whatevs.”

This is not helpful.

Let’s try another example:
“You bought all your textbooks from the bookstore? I thought you were trying to save money…”
“Whatevs.”
“But you could’ve saved a bunch of money on betterworld.com!”
“…whatev.”

What does one say to that?

This inexplicably used term doesn’t just involve shortening the word, but instead shortening the whole conversation by offering nowhere to go. That is totes ridic (doh!)

]]> http://blog.betterworldbooks.com/2009/01/09/anti-word-of-the-week-whatev/feed/ 0 Anti Word of the Week: Totes http://blog.betterworldbooks.com/2008/12/19/anti-word-of-the-week-totes/ http://blog.betterworldbooks.com/2008/12/19/anti-word-of-the-week-totes/#comments Fri, 19 Dec 2008 23:22:36 +0000 Jack http://blog.betterworld.com/2008/12/19/anti-word-of-the-week-totes/ Based on my perusing of Urban Dictionary, “Totes” appears to be the abbreviation of totally. This word is typically used by a hipster crowd that feels that there is some irony in pretending to speak like Paris Hilton. At the same time, this group will claim to like pop music and some types of popular rap even though they normally hate the musical selection of others. This is totes crap.

Totes in this context does not appear to be related to the umbrella company.

]]> http://blog.betterworldbooks.com/2008/12/19/anti-word-of-the-week-totes/feed/ 1 Anti Word of the Week: Besties http://blog.betterworldbooks.com/2008/12/12/anti-word-of-the-week-besties/ http://blog.betterworldbooks.com/2008/12/12/anti-word-of-the-week-besties/#comments Fri, 12 Dec 2008 19:53:28 +0000 Jack http://blog.betterworld.com/?p=3114 Because I’m a total curmudgeon, this will now be weekly feature in which I rail on modern language and the destruction thereof.  In a recent blog post, our Queen of all things reading related, Dana Barrett, used the expressions “…your book club besties.”  Now I am no old fuddy-duddy or anything of the sort (although I certainly fall in the Harold Bloom canonical works category than Oprah kitsch pick of the month category), but is this a commonly used term?  You would think, considering that I am still ID’d at rated R films, forget about liquor stores, that I would be more in touch with such vernacular.

I sauntered over to the wasteland of casual verbiage that is Urban Dictionary to find this:

[I'm not even going to touch "totes," that curious mixture of hipster/Hilton speak that I can't get away from in SF].  Now mind you I understand the concept–contextually it’s fairly easy to glean–but does anyone else think “beasties” when they see that?  Is this one of those things that just works better in voice than in writing?

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