Lexicons and Coffee Shops
So, I’m just hanging out at the coffee shop with my laptop for hours, you know, killing boring time like you do, with my Dollar Store extension cord draped across the back of the other chair, I mean, who is going to come sit there anyway, at this tiny round table with someone they don’t even know, barely big enough for one much less two, and no, I don’t feel bad about having to plug in the cord, everybody who comes here is broke anyway, with our used Birkenstocks from the Salvation Army thrift store next door, and our cheesy old laptops with cracked hinges and batteries that won’t hold a charge anymore, and you know what it’s like, anyway.
And this cute girl with spiky hair and a couple of piercings walks up, and says “Anyone sitting here?” and before I even answer she’s picked up the extension cord real delicately, little pinky charm-school raised high and all, and dropped it to the floor, and she sits and smiles and says to me “Close your mouth” and I guess my mouth was open a little, you know,’cause she was just a knockout, even her nose jewelry was hot, and anyway, I’m not averse to body mods at all, fact I have a tattoo that I think is really cool, but it is a little controversial and made my mother cry when she saw it by accident that time in the bathroom, you know, because like I keep telling Mom, we NEED to put a bathroom in the basement, ok?
So, anyway, she turns those beautiful debutante browns on me and says “What’cha got goin’?” and nods her head towards the laptop, and I’m thinking, oh hell, she thinks I’m streaming something cool, some trending video on YouTube, or checking my Instagram or some such, but actually, I’m browsing the Oxford English Dictionary Online, you know, because that’s what nerdy English majors do, and I know normal people think that’s weird, and ok, it is, but thank God for Prairie Home Companion and the way they made English majors sound sexy, or we’d probably all get rounded up in a FEMA camp somewhere, you know?
Then beauty princess looks around regally and says, “I love these old re-gentrified downtown neighborhoods, don’t you? So perfect for the hipoisie” then she takes a delicate cup-kissing sip, and I think, whoa lady, is that even a word? But I am online to the OED, so, real casually and detached-like I tap a few keys, and holy cow, there it is, “hipoisie, n. /ˌhɪpwɑˈzi/ Hip people considered collectively or as a type” and good Lord, it’s a brand new word, only put in the dictionary March of this year, here it is not even the end of April, and I’m bowled over that she would know this, and my right knee starts jiggling up and down.
Then I blushed like I hadn’t since eighth grade, and no lie, I actually stammered, when I said “Hipoisie, good one, that’s new isn’t it?”
“Sure is,” she leaned closer and dropped her voice, “It’s formed by compounding – hip plus the last two morphemes of bourgeoisie.” Now I was really sweating, cause, you know, nothing turns me on like a little public etymology. She traced the laptop logo delicately with her pretty-nailed finger “You know, I’d really like to get more familiar with you, I’m always looking for guys to try out new words on…if you think it’s appropriate?”
And I said, all jittery and shit, “Oh yeah, p…p…perfectly appropriate for what we got going here, for sure” and I tried to sound all cool and above-it-all but what I was thinking was, you know, please, please, please – and if it happens, I swear I’ll find and use new words now every frickin’ chance I get, right? And right then and there I was willing to switch my vocabulary to something more subtle and suggestive, if you know what I mean.
And she laughs when she sees my face, ‘cause I look like a puppy fixing to come home from the pound, and she leans over and pushes the laptop closed and says “Hey, I’ve got the new Tragically Hip cd at home, want to come over?” and you know, of course I do, so we leave, and I swear, I was so excited and rattled that I completely forgot to pull the extension cord out of the laptop or the wall.