Enough Already!

New words and idioms come into the language all the time. Every year we are treated to a new list which has gone from colloquial to worthy of being included in the dictionary. Mostly, I like them since they add a bit of a contemporary to what is already the most complex language on earth, according to Karen Larsen my reading teacher. The media and those always IN the media do the most to spread such things, such as when Paris Hilton began describing everything as "hot." That was all one could hear as a descriptor.
My friend Kathleen decries Rachel Ray's verbiage as simply too confined. When Ms Ray places something in a different location, she "pops" it over there. When she picks something up, she "grabs" it, according to the exasperated Kathleen who is nothing if not a word aficianado befitting her 40-year career as a demanding teacher of English.
I always take it upon myself to update Kathleen on what I think she should know. For example, when the US POstal Service cycling team was beating the world, I let her in on the phrase "The Big Blue Train" so she could use it casually around her children who were immensely impressed. This weekend, I added "snap" to her vocabulary.
While I'll admnit that "snap" is far from a recent addition to usage, being featured for quite a while on "My Name is Earl" and "That 70's Show," its inclusion into a conversation to imply a subtle yet effective criticism was new to her. We practiced a few times, and I think she's ready to once again impress her children when she goes to visit next week.
That leads me to another major point: we have to get rid of a couple of words. "Awesome" and "like" seriously need to be expunged from our usage. Certainly, there are other exclamations which could be used instead of "awesome," and since "like" implies an approximation, and I think we should all be a little more certain about things. And another thing...
My Father's Day meal took place at a Mongolian Barbecue place. Mixing five different sauces and lemon or lime juice as well as a variety of soy and chili sauces is complicated at best, but every now and then I get surprised as I did today. Green is my favorite color, and wasabi paste is also green...I know it's from a Japanese root, and it's related to horseradish and eaten a lot with raw fish in Asia, so I expected it to be hotter than average. However, when I got a larger amount than normal and actually couldn't breathe for a couple of seconds, I seriously considered starting CPR on myself. Watering eyes and running nose are par for the course, but this breath-stealing reaction was almost scary. So this is what I propose:
in the dictionary,"Eutrema wasabi" should not be described as "a pungent greenish root of an Asian plant related to the mustard plant." Quite simply, the definition should read "breathtaking paste which will burn going in and burn coming out."
I'm still waiting for the second part...it will not be pretty.