Hey! You kids! Get off my lawn! Or: Old McBunny Had a Farm, and On This Farm He Had a Bunch of Hip Phrases He Hated

Here is a compendium of currently trendy phrases, styles, words, acronyms, and usages that need to end immediately, and the reason(s) why.

1. FML: An acronym for “fuck my life,” usually seen at the end of self-important, histrionic facebook updates by iPhone-toting college girls and gay boys upset that the Comcast service winked out during Project Runway. Yes, fuck your cushy, well-subsidized, socially-networked, first-world life, you ungrateful shit.

2. The. Period. After. Every. Word: Used for emphasis, as if anything anyone ever says on Twitter is important. No one gives a shit about what you think of the new Cee Lo Green song. You. Are. A. Tool.

3. Improper pluralization of words ending in -us: In Latin, a masculine-gender word that ends in -us is usually pluralized by replacing the -us with an -i (the so-called “second declension”). For example: “alumnus” becomes “alumni.” When the word has an i before the -us, you double up the i. For example, “radius” becomes “radii.” You do NOT double up the i otherwise. Why people started doing this, I will never know, but in an attempt to look learnèd, you look like a dip.

4. Ellipses (…) instead of periods: Just end your sentence. You’re wasting precious calories to type those extra periods that could better be used to shovel KFC Double Downs into your face or click on pop-ups in porn sites. Plus, it makes you look non-committal and indecisive, like you haven’t fully thought out what you wrote, or that I should be expecting another phrase that never comes. Full stop.

5. lolspeak: Popularized by the abominable icanhascheezburger.com, a style of writing used by hipsters to look cute. A human interpretation of what it would look like if adorable cats (“kittehs”) had basic faculties in the English language. Notable for its tendency to make words longer than necessary (e.g., “my” becomes “mah”). I hate cats. Grow up. Shut up. Knock it off.

6. “Fail” used as a noun: Used by confirmed douchebags and facebook scenesters when passing judgment on the latest YouTube meme, Charlie Sheen debacle, or tuna sandwich they had for lunch. Often preceded by “epic” for extra retardation. Fail is a verb. Failure is a noun. Stop it.

7. Douchey corporate PR language: Normal people in normal conversation should never utter words like leveraging, paradigm, optimize, new media, synergy, and marketable. You are not your hideous job. Don’t let it suck what’s left of your soul out of you. Talk like a normal person, dick whistle.

8. Improper use of the word “electrocution”: Electrocution is a portmanteau of the words “electricity” and “execution,” coined in the days of the Tesla/Edison AC/DC “war of currents.” It means to die by electric shock, not simply to receive a shock. Sort that out.

9. Staycation: Just kill yourself.

10. Unnecessary use of the present participle: Most likely traceable to the McDonald’s “I’m lovin’ it” ad campaign, it usually consists of taking a description of one’s feelings towards something (e.g., “I like your hat”) and making it a present participial phrase (“I’m liking your hat”). I’m aware that McDonald’s is in cahoots with the Bilderberg Group and the reptilians to control our thoughts and it may be difficult to put this one to bed, but really, it’s utmost in douchery. End it.

11. Using internet abbreviations in speech: I know, you’re probably trying to be “ironic” or “clever,” but if anyone ever says “LOL” or “STFU” to me in a non-ASCII-based conversation, it’s a guaranteed haymaker to the face, you can count on that.

12. BFF: Best friend forever? Obviously the person doesn’t mean that much to you if you can’t even take the time to say “best friend forever.”

13. Green: Used by fair-weather environmentalist débutantes and marketing departments to give an image of ecological responsibility to things that are usually antithetical to it, such as houses, cars, and pretty much anything manufactured by mankind. Yeah, I know, your Toyota Prius gets 50mpg going downhill in a tailwind. Did you stop to think where it came from, what sort of processes and materials are used in its manufacture, how it was shipped to this country, so on and so forth? Let me reference the great sage Kermit T. Frog when I say, it ain’t easy being green. But it is easy to shut the hell up.

14. Indie: I suppose this is short for “independent,” but it has now been rendered meaningless in a homeopathic process of cultural dilution by the entertainment industry and tight-pantsed hipsters with MicroKorgs and a MySpace in every basement from here to Yuma. Some people even go so far as to call themselves “indie kids.” Christ. “What kind of band are they?,” you might ask the tattooed-and-mustachioed doorman at your local shithole rock club on a Tuesday night. “Oh, they’re indie,” he’ll say. “Yeah, I know they’re independent. They’re unsigned, they’re playing spraypainted guitars through crappy solid-state amplifiers covered in stickers, and no one’s here. What is their genre?” “Like I said, they’re indie. Ten bucks.”