Check it out. Last night I’m walking through the ghetto near our apartment on the way to the movies, and one of the people I was with said, “Maybe we should buy some Gummi Bears before we go see this movie.”
So I said, “Fo-Sheezy!”
And then they said, “What?”
And I said, “You, know… Fo-Sheezy!”
“What the hell does that mean?”
“I don’t know.”
“Then why the hell did you say it? Why in the world would you say something that you clearly don’t even know the meaning of?”
“I don’t know… I just kind of thought it was appropriate at the time, but looking back on it, it doesn’t really make sense. The word, I mean, not the appropriateness of using the word.”
“Dude, normal people don’t just go throwing around words and phrases that don’t mean anything. If they did, that would destroy the gentle fabric of linguistics built up over the course of thousands of years.”
“You know what, you’re right. I mean, you make a good point.”
“You’re damn right I make a good point. You sound like an idiot if you can’t back up the things you say with some sort of explanation of what you’re saying means. It attacks your credibility and undermines the intelligence of your audience. I want you to concentrate on everything that you say from now on and the impact it makes on yourself and those around you.”
“Fine… (pause) So, how about we just skip the Gummi Bears, and try to get a good seat in the theater?”
“Word,” they said. Word.
And so we kept on walking on that cold evening, completely ignoring the painful irony of them using the word, “Word,” and it’s subsequent impact on the gentle fabric of linguistics. But I didn’t say anything about it. Shit, I was so bummed that I couldn’t use “Fo-Sheezy” anymore I wasn’t about to touch that one.