He-larious

Nice, Boston Globe

I am aware that clever little words enter our verbal and written lexicon from time to time. For the most part, they are stupid. Like stay-cation. Might as well call it gay-cation. Think about it.

- So where did you go on your vacation?
- Oh, I just sat at home.
- That’s gay.

See? But this new one that the Boston Globe thought up is even worse.

For most of his life Joe McCain subsisted on pepperoni and sausage pizza, steak bomb subs, and anything “fried, fried, or fried.’’ In other words, says the Somerville police detective with a shaved head, snowy beard, and tattoos cascading up his arms, chest, and neck, “I ate like an American.’’

Really? Cause it sounds like you’re eating like a moron. No one eats like that. I think what you meant was, “I was eating like a MIDDLE American.” There. That’s better.

Three years later, sipping a yerba mate latte at the Sherman Cafe in Union Square, the buff and bright-eyed McCain is the new face of veganism: men in their 40s and 50s embracing a restrictive lifestyle to look better, rectify a gluttonous past, or cheat death. They are hegans.

No, there is a word for that already. It’s vegan. You don’t have to create a new word for it, Kathleen. It would be like reading your article and thinking that you were a cutsie girl trying to come up with something clever and then lumping you with every girl that tries to do it and then calling you all some made-up word, just for wit’s sake. It would be she-diotic.