Worst. Blogosphere clichés. EVAR.

Bad Lingo: Blog-Media Clich̩s РGawker:

Quick reference card-style summary:

  • Best ___ Ev[e|a]r.
  • ____, not so much.
  • (various ZOMGish abbreviations)
  • “I just threw up a little in my mouth”
  • ____, yo.
  • ____. Oy.
  • ____. Seriously? Seriously?
  • What’s next? _____?
  • I’m looking at you, ____.
  • Um, ____?
  • ____, wait for it, ____.
  • ____ made my ____ bleed.
  • ____-y goodness.
  • ____-gasm.
  • ____ is the new ____.

I’m curious where some of these come from. The “___, not so much” I remember hearing first many years ago in, of all places, a Gilbert Gottfried routine. “Worst __ ever” is of course Comic Book Guy from the Simpsons. Wouldn’t be surprised if the Simpsons is the origin of the ___y goodness one either, and maybe some more. I seem to remember “wait for it” from Monty Python. Some of course are too trivial to trace to a particular locus.

There’s cliché and there’s slang, of course. They’re not the same thing. When you use a cliché you are saying something unoriginal where something original might be expected. When you use slang, you are saying something unoriginal purposefully. Slang to one person might be cliché to the next. There’s also purposeful ironic appropriation of slang, which when done too often becomes cliché…

There’s a lot of nuance to the phenomenon of repeated bits of purported cleverness….yo.