It’s all about the nouns

They’re the first to go, you know, right around the time the knees start to give out and the hairline moves in the opposite direction of the bustline. There’s a reason the original Mrs. Malaprop, who gave her name to amusing misnomers way back in the 18th century, was a woman of a certain age. (And no, children, I was not the model.)

Today we’ve got the growing phenomenon of Boomerspeak, when a perfectly reasonable conversation between seasoned life veterans suddenly deteriorates into a low-rent Abbott and Costello routine.

Boomer 1: Did you get the, ah, you know, that thing you wanted?

Boomer 2: You mean the, er, whatsits for the whosits?

Boomer 1: Yeah, you were going to pick it up from, oh hell, you know who.

Boomer 2: She wasn’t there.

(Which is an all-purpose answer that cleverly deflects the fact that, despite sticky-note reminders strategically placed on every visible surface including the rearview mirror and the top of the dog’s head, retrieving the aforementioned thing had dropped so far off your personal radar it was sucked up by a passing pod of humpbacks.)

Before we attained the exulted status of seasoned life veterans — when we all had more style than substance — we would poke cruel fun at the deliberate pace of our elders’ speech. But I’m suspecting they may have been on to something — make sure you’ve got all the necessary parts of speech to hand before trying to construct a coherent sentence.

Here at the galactic headquarters of the vast Northern Colorado Business Report empire, the crack editorial team huddles up around the bistro table once a week to check on the progress of the current issue and discuss ideas for future stories. Schedules being what they are, these skull sessions usually occur later in the day, a time ripe for conversations filled with myriad Boomerisms, which occasion much hilarity among the more youthful members of the staff.

Young, energetic reporter: … And I’m up to my eyebrows in another gianormous pile of SEC documents so when they call to complain, I can quote them chapter and verse from the public record about why they got caught.

Seasoned veteran editor: Didn’t somebody do something like this a while ago?

Seasoned veteran managing editor: Yeah, we wrote something about one of those guys back in, well, let’s see, it was when Bob was editor, I think, and I still had that terrible raspberry iMac…

SVE: Yeah, but I don’t think it was a news story. It had an illustration with a (here hands describe shape of whatever it was), and …

SVME: Right. It was blue. And the story came in late, from a freelancer, what was her name? I can see her, but, oh damn, was it Connie? Carol?

Boomer reporter: I think she’s moved to California. (Another fabulous all-purpose answer that means, I wouldn’t know who it was if she showed me two forms of picture ID.)

Young, energetic copyeditor: Snork!

A huge part of Boomerspeak is Boomers Tourette’s. Fifteen minutes after the meeting ends, when the single word, “Karen!” wafts out of my office, everybody knows I finally remembered who may or may not have written a story about something or other before she did or did not move to California.

And we can all move on with whatever it was we were supposed to be all about.

on Facebook on LinkedIn