7 Terms and Phrases We Should Bury With 2009 (reprise)

this post originally appeared on November 20th 2009

Every passing year gives rise to any number of mind-bogglingly annoying terms and phrases.  2009 was no exception.

I submit the following terms as ready-for-obsolescence as the year draws to a close, let’s leave these behind as we head into 2010:

Shovel-Ready
Let me help you out with this: there is no such thing as a shovel-ready project.  Nowhere in the nation can one break ground on anything without a minimum of 3 to 6 months worth of angry town hall meetings, eminent domain battles and political posturing.  This is why federal money is still brimming in the states’ coffers rather than being spent on stimulus to this day.

Too Big To Fail
If I hear this term again, I’m gonna experiment with how far down my throat I can jam a pair of newly-sharpened gardening shears.  Big things fail all the time, just look at Kirstie Alley‘s comeback attempt.

There’s An App For That
In my day (1998 to be precise, a year that I absolutely OWNED) “apps” were short for appetizers.  Neighborhood bars could always class up the joint by adding an apps menu of potato skins, mozzarella sticks and chicken fingers.  The whole app-phone thing is cool, but the incessant discussion of the fact that your phone can now pinpoint the exact location of any girl you dated back in college is pointless and annoying in the extreme.  Nobody cares about your phone or what it can do, you didn’t invent it, you merely selected the wallpaper.

The Fed’s Printing Press
Not since Gutenberg invented his book machine has so much attention been lavished on any one printing press.  The notion that the Federal Reserve is “running the printing presses night and day” has become so oft-repeated that non-business people now actually believe that Geithner is stained with actual green ink.

Going Rogue
Neither Sarah Palin or any of the journalists that play into her nonsense truly know the meaning of the word “Rogue”.  Should either the walking curiosity we call Ms Palin or her equally absurd media tormentors ever truly encounter a real “rogue” of any sort, they would promptly be in need of a diaper change.

Tweople
Yeah, let’s all stop doing that “add a TW to the beginning of words” thing just to prove our Twitter bona fides.  Other permutations of this include:

TWipstick
TWeeseburger with fries
TWeekend
TWaffle with syrup
TWeezers   (oh wait, that’s actually a real thing)

Vampire Squid
Matt Taibbi nailed the zeitgeist with his Great American Bubble Machine piece in Rolling Stone this summer, in which he famously referred to Goldman Sachs as a Vampire Squid.  Unfortunately, the New York Times’ Maureen Dowd just got around to using the term, which means it’s now officially dead – kinda like the first time I heard my mom say Bling.  At this point, I’d say it’s high time we all dropped this faux-surprised attitude that there are perennial haves and have nots in this world.  Goldman will be just fine and the billions of barrels of ink spilled about it have not and will not change the fact that they own you.  Deal with it.

Anyway, those are the terms and phrases I’m ready to leave behind come New Years Eve.

I’m sure I missed a few.  Feel free to chime in!