My new favorite writing prompt is even more fun if you’re old as dirt

OMG best thing ever

A fellow copywriter/word nerd posted this Merriam Webster tool in a Facebook group, and all I can say is, what a perfect birthday gift. 

It lets you see what words were made official the year you were born. I thought that would make me feel old, but many of the words I would’ve guessed as 80s words — which makes me feel very modern.

I may not be a Millennial or whatever age looks great in bright orange lipstick, but I actually don’t consider myself old, or at least not “old as dirt.” Unless we’re talking about fresh, fertile soil. I’m young as mulch, how about that?

The fact that I haven’t been around any longer than the VCR seals the deal.

I used this as a writing prompt, picking a few words to expand on.

Ageism

I laughed seeing this one right at the top, on the eve of my birthday. If feels as if it was invented just for me, to use years later — just like the savings bonds my mom found in my dad’s safe deposit box. (When I took them to the bank, the 20-year-old teller said, “Wow, these are really old! I’ve never even seen this kind before.” I told him, please don’t call something from my birth year “really old,” thank you.)  

I never gave a shit about ageism until people started calling me “ma’am.” Now I see how real and problematic it is that this “ism” is still acceptable. Substitute any other group for any sentence containing “old people” and you’ll be shocked by what we’re allowed to say about them.

“Ew, I don’t want to live there, it’s full of old people.”

“Who was at the door?” “No one, just some old guy.”

“You can’t work your iphone? What are you, 90?”

And btw, yes, I feel 90 seeing what words didn’t exist till the year I was born. But maybe that’s a compliment!

Alternative school

I went to one of these, preschool through 8th grade. My school was shaped like a TV and had no walls. Classrooms were divided by bookcases that blocked view only partially and sound not at all. We didn’t have homerooms, we had clusters. And the homeroom teachers were “cluster advisors.” During class, you had a full view of the center area, where — starting in 5th grade — the sexy kids who had Free Period sat on tables and flirted. Our teachers were lenient, and we called them by first name. As in, “Larry, I don’t think it’s fair that you gave us homework tonight when Family Ties is on.”

Larry: “OK. No homework tonight.”

In 9th grade, I switched to a traditional school. Teachers were Mr., Ms., and Mrs., and they assigned tons of homework regardless of NBC’s lineup.

Anchorwoman

Wow! That this was a new thing reminds me that I was born in olden times. I am olde timey.

Angel dust

Angel dust was the featured drug in my favorite made-for-TV movie, Desperate Lives. Early in it, a highschooler played by Helen Hunt snorts some homemade angel dust off her boyfriend’s pinky in the school science lab, and then busts through the glass window and falls 3 stories to the ground below, scrambling on the ground amid broken glass and screaming, “There are bugs on me! Get them off!”  It was part of Get High On Yourself Week, my favorite week of television ever.

Antigay

That this was a new word speaks to the idea that it was a new conversation. Like, until then, maybe being against gayness was merely a given, like being “pro-food.” I wonder if Three’s Company was considered progressive because of its gay jokes. Janet, Chrissy and Jack got away with living together because Mr Roper thought Jack was, you know, “a Tinkerbell.”  {Mr Roper holds hand in dainty “holding a teacup” position. Cue laugh track.}

Autosave

If this was around when I was born, where was it when I lost an entire paper on Voltaire’s Candide sophomore year of college? I’d stayed up all night writing it — not unusual — and then had to recreate it from memory right before class. That Macintosh computer did not have autosave.

Bubblegum

I wasn’t allowed to have bubblegum when I was little, or any gum. Gum grossed my mom out. She let me have Juicy Fruit on planes to help pop my ears, but that was it. When I was old enough to go the store myself, the first thing I ever bought was a pack of strawberry Hubba Bubba. (Way better than Bubbleicious.) I became a terrible chain chewer. That’s what happens when you don’t let a kid have gum.

Crystal meth

I’m sorry for anyone who gets addicted to meth, but thankful it exists — or we wouldn’t have Breaking Bad, the greatest TV show of all time.

Delete key

This vocab nugget was ahead of its time. It sure didn’t exist on typewriters, which were what I used to write my first college papers and some in high school. To delete anything, I had to use goddamn whiteout. That’s right, Sonny. Or a fucking pencil eraser. Kids today have no idea how physically cruddy eraser shavings are. Like dead skin flakes all over your paper. Or, sometimes, the paper itself would get all rubbed away. Thinking about an eraser gives me the chills, same as when the restaurant busser comes around and scrapes the crumbs off the tablecloth. STOP!

Ew

What did you say before this was a word? I feel sorry for kids born before I was, who only had “yuck” for when their parents were kissing or when it was Dad’s turn to make dinner and he tried to pass off leftover meatloaf and pickled herring as a proper meal.

Fat farm

There was a Gary Larson cartoon that showed fat people on all fours, grazing in the grass. The caption was “Fat Farm,” and it made me laugh hysterically. I had it on my bulletin board all through middle school.

Hare Krishna

The Hare Krishnas always used to be in the airport, selling flowers. Or giving them out, I forget. Mom would say, “Oh boy, here come the Hare Krishnas” and cut a wide berth around them. I thought they were dangerous.

Kazillion

I’m too lazy to look it up, but I wonder where this fell in order of birth alongside its siblings, bazillion and gazillion. I’ve used them all, especially in describing how much money I’d like to make.

Life coach

Wow, these were around when I was born? I think I was well into my 20s before I heard this term, and was like, “What the hell is a life coach?” Now, I probably wouldn’t have a business without these people. Though I only trust about three of them and I still wonder what the hell most of them do.
(Confession: my friend Jason observed just yesterday about my copywriting business, “It’s called copywriting but you’re essentially a life coach, aren’t you?” Yes, I think I am. But that stays between us.)

Martin Luther King Day

Wow, they made this a day the year after he died? I feel like the America we live in today would wait a decade.

Puttanesca

I’m glad any style of pasta got recognition the year I was born, especially one that translates to “in the style of the whore,” though I’m more of a straight-up pomodoro e basilico kind of gal.

Rip-off

If this hadn’t been a word, how would my dad have described anything I ever wanted to spend money on? “Designer jeans? You know what you’re paying for with those? The rent! Dungarees are for knocking around. They’re play clothes. Designer jeans — what a rip-off.”  

Studly

What happened to studly? I remember my surprise and delight at sleepaway camp, summer after 7th grade, when not only did a kid from our brother cabin have a crush on me, but he was universally considered “the studliest one” in the whole bunk.

Videocassette recorder

I guess when these were invented, they were only for TV studios. Or, for fancy corporations and government agencies that had that kind of computer that took up the whole room. Friends with lots of electronics and cable TV (usually the ones with divorced parents) had Betamaxes by 6th grade, but my family didn’t get a VCR till I was 12 or 13. The first movie I ever rented was Fame, which I hadn’t been allowed to see when it came out. The first show I recorded was The Facts of Life. It aired on Thursdays, and on Thanksgiving I gave thanks for not having to miss the 2-part special, The Facts of Life Goes To Paris.

Yech

People don’t use this much anymore. Ew is sufficient. Though Yech has its place. It reminds me of Mad magazine. There was always a character in, like, a Dave Berg cartoon exclaiming “Yech!” in a speech bubble.

Now you.

Look up your year and see what those words mean to you. Pick one, and…you know what I’m going to say:

TELL ME IN THE COMMENTS.

ps – Hat tip to Autumn Tompkins, AKA The Grumpy Grammarian, who does fabulous and fast copy editing work