Well, I reckon that's all she wrote.

Language changes. Yeah, duh. What sounds perfectly clear once is gobbledygook a few years before or after, even to native speakers. Take this bit of doggerel:

He was not a stalwart scrapper,

And he shrank from every Flapper,

She was bound to take the doughnut,

This he got into his slow nut.


When he said his name was Jimmy,

She began at once to shimmy. . .
The Jester Book of Columbia Light Verse, quoted from a newspaper review in 1921.

'Oh, you kid!' was what they would have said to this. Try saying that to a teenager now. Wait for the eyeroll.

You know why they only sing 'praise songs' in church now? Because of exchanges like this:

'This hymn says, "Oh, words with heavenly comfort fraught." What does "fraught" mean? Who talks like that?'

Me: 'I heard somebody say "fraught" just the other day. They said, "I hate Thanksgiving with my family. Dinners are always so fraught."'

'So, talking to God is like being with unpleasant relatives?' Good point.

Today on Twitter, a writer wanted to know the origin of the expression 'That's all she wrote.' I'm pretty sure the questioner wasn't a US Southerner because that's an old one where I come from. Of course, Twitter was ready, willing, and unable to resist retailing the inevitable folk etymology – something about 'Dear John' letters during World War II. Like most of these stories, totally bogus, folks. This can be proven by the fact that the expression appears in print long before the war. Nobody knows what brought it on, but I can pretty much guarantee you it originated in Texas. Some cowboy said it. All the other cowboys used it. Then it got said in the Brownsville Herald in 1935, and. . . well, that was all she wrote.

Stuff like that happens all the time: we start to use expressions but we have no idea where they came from. I'm guessing the crowd up north have started using this one because they read it in a book. Stephen King used it once and he has tons of readers. Thus do these sayings get around. They circulate and then. . .poof! They slink off into the mists of unremembered verbiage.

I have been doing a bit of research, so y'all don't have to. Here are some new words and expressions from this year, fresh off the boat, as it were, ready for you to sprinkle into your casual conversation. Don't like them? Here's a hot tip: the older you are, the more important it is that you use the most irritating slang phrases as often as possible.

Hearing them from you will fill younger people with horror. They will now look upon the new phrase with disgust. Old people are saying this! The lustre has worn off. It is yesterday's phrase: musty, shopworn, and, worst of all, intelligible. They will scurry to find a new phrase to mouth – hopefully one that is less annoying.

So here's a quick checklist to keep your vocabulary current. Remember: use these phrases early and often, especially if you're a journalist. Nobody likes originality. And, let's face it, every one of them is better than 'Oh, you kid!'

2023 Checklist

nepo baby: child of a celebrity who is famous in the same field as their parent. Oddly, I haven't heard anybody refer to the Bridges brothers as nepo babies – but then, they have genuine talent. I also suspect there are not all that many people around these days that remember Sea Hunt.

zhuzh up: to make something more stylish, lively, or attractive. 'That bag will zhuzh up an old outfit.'

rent-free: used as a way to criticise or mock someone who is over-fixated on a particular individual. Example: 'Joe Biden is living rent-free in Donald Trump's head these days. The former president can't stop talking about his successor.'

salty: not what you'd think. Currently, the word means 'annoyed or upset.' 'My boss got salty with me just because I was a few minutes late.' Obviously, this expression is going to replace 'salty' as a term for cussing. Previously, 'salty language' meant 'full of cuss words'.

yeet: to throw, especially forcefully and with no concern for where the object thrown may land. 'Somebody just yeeted a water bottle into the crowd.'

sus: No, not 'suss', which means 'to figure out'. 'Sus' means 'suspect', as in, 'Her explanation for how she just happened to be there is a little sus. I think somebody tipped her off.'

lit: exciting, or excellent. Every generation has to have a word of global approval. Remember 'rad'? Or 'boss'? Just me, then.

And that's all she wrote. For now.

Dmitri Gheorgheni

25.09.23 Front Page

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