I don’t LOL, ROFL, LMAO or anything of the sort. I do, on occaision, SRWFS (smirk righteously while feeling superior), EMTBOCAHM (eat many tiny bags of chips and hate myself), and RMEWIFTCMFSTO (roll my eyes when I forget to change my Facebook status to “offline”). None of those are going to catch on, because they are long and clunky, and because you can’t pronounce them outloud. Although, I get pretty irked when I hear someone actually utter “LOL” aloud.

Anywhoo. There are tons of neato expressions that predate the computer/text messaging/IM/Facebook/Myspace phenomenon. I think we should concentrate on bringing them back. Here is a list of examples:

Calling someone “Turkey”. How I love this. Perhaps best used in the Jerry Reed song “She Got the Goldmine, I Got the Shaft”, “turkey” as a means of addressing someone has to be uttered in a certain way. You can’t drag out the “turkey” like “turrkeeyy”. It’s got to be staccato, like TURKey. TURK + EE. Practice it. Try it on your friends and loved ones.

Responding to the question “How are you?” with “Ducky”, or “Just Ducky”. As an adjective it means “fine”, or “excellent”. You can mean it, or you can say it sarcastically. Either way it’s fun to say and people don’t expect it, so that’s fun too. Incidentally, as a noun ducky means “someone’s favorite”. So you’re sort of implying subconciously that you’re a favorite of some kind, which makes people view you in a more positive light. Note: that last part is utter and total speculation and mostly bullshit.

“I am called…” You might notice that people from countries who speak English correctly (ie any English-speaking country besides the good old US of A) say this a lot more often. My good friend from Trinidad always tells stories about people saying stuff like “I had a friend called Ruth…” and it sounds really nice. Flip it and use it on yourself. You’ve got Instant Importance.

“Fixin’ to” It means that you’re getting ready to do something. “I’m fixin’ to wash the car”. It doesn’t mean like “fixing dinner”. You can be “fixin’ to fix dinner”, but you are not using it properly if you’re merely “fixing dinner’. Dig?

“Golly Gee” or “Golly Gee Whilickers” – People curse too much and too often. Instead of a good GD, or a F’in A, try on a “Golly Gee” for size. You can probably even get the right amount of sarcasm and viciousness into your voice that people will think you’re being edgy.

So that’s a good start. Try these on for size and see how much better you’ll feel.