I don’t have a specific moment of Atlanta Traffic Idiocy for today, but a general observation. I was half an hour late today because my sector of downtown was clogged by Christians in town to hear Pastor T.D. Jakes at the Georgia Dome. There’s some kind of holy gathering going on - MegaFest, apparently. Normally I don’t write much in my blog about religion or politics, not because I don’t have feelings and opinions about those things, but simply because I don’t see much point. I’d only be inviting tons of hate mail from those with opposing viewpoints and, moreover, it would be futile hate mail. There’s probably nothing I can write that’s going to change anyone’s mind about such personal matters and similarly, once I’ve cogitated upon an issue and decided where I stand, someone else isn’t likely to change mine. That having been said, I found it most interesting (not to say amusing) to watch a bunch of self-described Christians, in town for the express purpose of fellowship and worship, yelling obscenities and making rude gestures to each other once the traffic got nightmarish. I am not kidding about this, although I do take a rather perverse pleasure in reporting same: this morning I saw a man in a cream-colored Escalade (which had one of those Jesus-fish on the back) flipping the bird at someone in a red Kia who was trying to change lanes. He was wearing a “WWJD” bracelet on the same arm he used to give the middle-finger salute. Now, I didn’t know Jesus personally (and no, I haven’t “found” him either, not being entirely convinced that he was lost) so in a way I can’t say with certainty what Jesus would do. However, I have a strong suspicion that what he WOULDN’T do is make a “fuck you” gesture at a lost, confused traveler. Call it a hunch.

On to lighter topics. Nancy’s blog about intentional grammar mistakes made me think about my own - stuff that I write incorrectly on purpose, for humorous or personal reasons. I would hope that it would be apparent that I do this intentionally; hopefully readers presume that someone who uses words like “assiduously”, “efficacy” and “pusillanimous” knows perfectly well how to spell “guts” but chose to write “gunts” instead. In case it’s not obvious, though, here are some of my intentional errors.

Often I write words or phrases the way I’d say them, instead of appropriately spelled and punctuated. For example, I know “damn it” consists of two separate words, but I write it like I say it: “dammit”. I frequently use “gonna”, “kinda”, “wanna” instead of “going to”, “kind of”, “want to”. While I do realize that “my” is not a complete sentence, for emphasis and the requisite pauses between words, I write “Oh. My. Gods.”. Sheila and I know the correct term for an interrogatory, but although we’ll sometimes say to each other, “Lemme ax you a question”, I can assure you that hatchets are not involved. Regarding slang, the term I employ most often is “the rents”, meaning my parental units, Mike and Mikey. My favorite slang word is “fuckwittage”, meaning acts of supreme stupidity way beyond the level of mere bullshit - such acts are of course committed by fuckwits, but I don’t blog that as much as I say it, in a half-hearted effort to keep things at least PG-13 around here. I also use the suffix “-age” to nounify certain words: foods one nibbles on are “snackage”, music one listens to is “tuneage”, things that are not good/not fun are “suckage”, etc.

Here is a small glossary of Helspeak:

gunts = guts, esp. guts with blood
confuzzled = bewildered (confused + puzzled)
muss = cat (puss + mouser)
noopy = nose, esp. a dog’s nose (Alternatively, “noop”. Derived somehow from Snoopy, when my brother was 3 or 4. How exactly it came about is lost in the annals of history, but still used in the family today.)
fangbanger = Goth, vampire wannabe
hep = help
ibidapwug = “I’ll bite a plug”, a threat my dog Sprocket makes, but he says it fast and run together like that. Plus he has a gap in his bottom teeth so he doesn’t say L’s so well. Yes, of course he talks. Doesn’t yours? If not, you should get a dog with a
pet degree = pedigree, although Sprocket is convinced it means he’s well-educated
McLaren = verb which means to keep messing and messing with something, fine-tuning it until it doesn’t work at all, as “Quit changing the settings before you McLaren my equalizer!” (derived from Formula One team McLaren Mercedes, formerly the only team which could beat Ferrari, now a mere deuce ahead of Sauber - oh, how the mighty have fallen)
megalicious = greatly delicious in a high degree, used esp. with regard to men

There are probably more, but that’s all I can think of at the moment.

MONTOYA DELENDA EST!