Weaponize? Trendjacking? Chillax? What cave did these words crawl out from? (This is an update to a post last month on Vocabularitis.)

I cringe when I hear someone say ‘weaponize,’ which once belonged to the military industry, but had been twitterized to a pulp just because it’s easy to add an ize to a word. I found this hilarious analogy at Dictionary.com. “If you start pelting your brother with grapes, he might accuse you of weaponizing your fruit salad,” it says. If we had our way, we would update Macbeth’s imagination running riot as he approaches a sleeping Duncan.

Is this a dagger which I see before me,
The handle toward my hand? Come, let me weaponize thee.

Consider, too the sudden emergence of the word ‘Cancel.’ What’s wrong with boycott? Oppose? Ignore? Deny? Or (to dredge up a non-word) Unfollow? Speaking of which unfollow was thrust upon us about ten years ago, and has become headline worthy. As in “Billie Eilish Unfollows Everyone on Instagram.” For heaven’s sakes!

And then there’s that abomination the media repeats – mansplain. The Wikipedia entry for it says it is a pejorative term, and could be a form or ‘misandry.’ Meaning, it’s a weaponized word.

No point getting all blustered (OK, cancel that word and replace it with ‘huffed up.’) Just chillax, will you?