Boobs

A Language Log post the other day included a use of the word boob by the male blogger, Victor Mair (whose always interesting posts have featured on this blog before):

sonar-like semi-circles emanating from the model's left boob

While boob is of course in very common use, and is perhaps the most common word that I hear for these body parts (subjective statement alert), it sounds funny to me to hear a man use the word (not completely weird, just enough to notice).

Perhaps men talk less about boobs generally than women do (sounds unlikely, I know), and when they do they refer to them in a more formal manner with the more neutral, formal, breasts? (Unless it's a discussion of someone's merits or otherwise in that department, in which case it's often tits.) Discounting lads'-mag discussions and passing mentions, that leaves few occasions for a man to use such a familiar word.

(Disclaimer: My thoughts apply only to UK usage, of course, and pretty only much my own experience.)

Fuckin A and the importance of commas

I saw this image on the internets illustrating this poor chap's inability to use commas (and knowledge of the difference between the spelling of comma and coma, an important distinction). 

After sniggering at the inappropriate mental image, I actually had trouble working out what the original meaning was. The comma is supposed to go after I have to watch him, I think (although a full stop would be better, probably), so 'Robby' has to watch his grandpa tonight. Then he says fuckin a man, tonite is gunna suck.

Well that's odd, I thought. Surely, if I know anything about anything, fuckin a is short for fuckin awesome (sorry about the inordinate amount of swearing in this post, by the way). And you would not be saying that it was awesome if you then said it was going to suck. Which he does. It's sarcasm, I suppose, but I missed it because people like this are not normally known for their use of sarcasm (by 'people like this' I'm generalising horribly over all people who write like this, but it's true).

So I looked it up on Urban Dictionary, because that's where you get incomplete and inaccurate information about colloquial expressions, and it said that it does stand for awesome, but that you can use it whether the situation is good or bad. The entry never mentions the word 'sarcasm', though, so I wonder if it's not sarcasm but in fact just generalisation or broadening of an expression from an exclamation of pleasure to an exclamation of any strong feeling. Knowing the intonation would help, but as I don't associate with teenagers I can't say it's a usage I'm familiar with in real life. Or irl, as the internet would say.

As if!

You probably know the expression, as if. It's used to show incredulity, in a kind of negative way. Sort of scoffing. So you can say,

As if he's ever going to get a girlfriend!

And what you mean is that he hasn't a hope in hell of getting a girlfriend. You can also use it on its own, like in the film Clueless: As if!


But like all colloquial phrases, its usage is shifting. I noticed that I use it like this:

As if I know what we're doing yet.  

As if I have sat nav.

It signifies something that we both know isn't true and is a faintly ridiculous suggestion. I'm almost scoffing at my interlocutor for suggesting it. My sister, however, uses it like this:

As if you can't eat bread and stuff? 

As if he doesn’t pass that on, does he even know?

It doesn't help that both the examples I could find in emails from her contain a negative element, whereas mine are affirmative. But she's definitely not scoffing; she's more just exclaiming and engaging in mutual feeling (so she's sympathising in the first one, and joining me in being outraged in the second).

But the main difference is that the propositions are true, in hers, but mine are false. As if I have sat nav means (It's not true that) I have sat nav, but As if he doesn't pass that on doesn't mean (It's not true that) he doesn't pass that on. It was said when he actually didn't pass it on. It's gone from being a negator (the grammaticality of yet in the first example proves it is, as you can't have yet in an affirmative sentence) to being an intensifier of sorts, used to make the proposition it's attached to more emphatic.

Urban Dictionary says that you can use it just to draw attention to something (true):

Cassie: Are you going to LeedsFest this year?
Jordyn: As if I can't go to LeedsFest! HATE THAT!

This is even more extreme, as in this exchange as if is attached to new information which has not previously been mentioned/known by both parties. In all of the other cases, it's attached to given (recently discussed or already-known) information (echoed information, often, so that the proposition has just been uttered by the other person before the as if expression that echoes it). In this last example, it's attached to the answer to a question asked by 'Cassie', who does not yet know the answer, so it must necessarily be new information.