This is perfect, thank you so much … not

The other day, while on an extended old-man rant about words and phrases that irk me, my son asked why I let such trivial things bother me. There’s nothing you can do about them, he reasoned, so why let them bother you?

First of all, as an old man, it is my right to complain. That’s what we do.

Second, I told him that my lifelong love of reading and writing have made me particularly attuned – and easily irked – by changes in language. For example, when I hear someone say “over 10 years”, I mumble to myself that they should have said “more than 10 years” (look it up). 

Ridiculous? Sure. And there are lots more, all equally ridiculous. For example … 

How did the simple, straightforward ‘thank you’ become the bloated ‘thank you so much’? Until the advent of ‘thank you so much’, the simple ‘thank you’ sufficed. You could make the case for ‘thank you so much’ in rare instances where you received a good or service that was simply exceptional, say, a firefighter saving you from a burning building. I’d give that guy a hearty ‘thank you so much’, But a simple transaction at the 7-11 while buying a Slurpee does not deserve a ‘thank you so much’. 

Still on the customer/employee transactional side, can we please put an end to ‘no worries’ as a response to ‘thank you’ (or, especially, ‘thank you so much’). What would I be worried about? Do I look worried? Is the person saying ‘no worries’ indicating that they are not worried about helping you, or that you should not be worried that you bothered them to do their job? The term came from Australia, originating with the laid-back surfing community. Well, if I lived in Australia, I wouldn’t have any worries either, with the exception that Australia has 66 venomous species of animal. But we’re not laid-back, tanned Aussies here. We’re proper, more formal, frostbitten Canadians. Let’s stick with a simple ‘you’re welcome’, or the even more elegant ‘my pleasure’.

The most insidious new word that has become inescapable is ‘perfect’. Now, there’s nothing wrong with the word perfect; it is, well, perfectly acceptable. But among the younger generation (which, in my case, is most generations), perfect has become an all-purpose replacement for ‘thank you’, or ‘good’ or even just ‘OK”. I was making an appointment over the phone last week, and the woman responded to all of my information with a ‘perfect’. If you’re giving your order in a restaurant, the server is likely to respond to your order with ‘perfect’. And not just, ‘perfect’, but ‘purrrr-fect’, the way Julie Newmar would say it when she was playing Catwoman on the old Batman TV show. Now, Julie Newmar could say purr-fect all day when she was wearing that slinky Catwoman outfit and I would not object, but Catwoman-esque servers are rare. A simple ‘good’, or ‘alright’, or even a ‘good choice’ is preferable to perfect. Besides, what, if anything, is perfect? Certainly not my name.

My son is right, however. I shouldn’t let these things bother me. So, I’ll just sign off with a ‘thank you so much’ for reading this.

Nope. I can’t do it. 

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