Ok, this isn't a song. It's called Words I Don't Like.

Since 9/11 several words have popped up that bug me. These aren’t new words, but in these uncertain times, certain words have been recast and given extra play. They bug me because they’re not useable in normal conversation; or they’re stilted to exclude me the way people use inflection to put you down; or they indicate something that I’m already supposed to know, but don’t; or they imply I don’t have good breeding, which I do if you count my ancient forebearers, like Olaf the Saint; but perhaps not if you count the sword-swinging Someled II of the Morven District in the Hebredies.

Even worse than having a word put you down, is a word that tries to lift you up to a place you are incapable of going to.

Take the word homeland. Before 9/11 I had never spoken the word or sung it for that matter. I had heard Fatherland spoken in reference to Germany, or Motherland, referring to Russia, of course. My old relatives always said the old country when talking about their homeland, but they never actually used the word homeland. So maybe the authors of the Homeland Security Act were trying to tell us something, that we’re protecting a way of life we’ll never going to get back to.

I’m not sure about the timing, but another uncertain word that has been dumped into the fracas is dived. ESPN and the StarTribune are on the same page with this word, and I think it’s silly. Saying that a bunch of sweaty beheamoths wearing helmets and shoulder pads DIVED into a pile to get a loose ball is like saying a bulldozer nudged a ton of dirt into an awaiting truck. Oh, come on. The word is dove. The beheamoths dove into the pile. The dog dove into the water. The kids dove into the pizza. Maybe if you’re speaking formally about the president of the United States you could say something like, “President Bush dived into Iraq without a clue as to what he was doing.”

Another word nagging at me is S-C-I-O-N. It’s been around for a very long time, but now it’s popping up again. It’s a word you never hear anyone speak outloud. You only see it in print when referring to a rich dude who will inherit a bunch of money from Dad. Well, how ‘bout using heir-apparent instead? That’s something people actually say outloud.

The biggest problem I have with S-C-I-O-N is that I don’t know how to pronounce it. Is is Ski-on, She-on, Sigh-on or See-own. Every time I read it I have to stop and try to pronounce it and that’s a big waste of time. I know what the writer is trying to say, why doesn’t he or she come out and say it?

If that isn’t bad enough we now have a car with the same name. When I asked a sales person, “How do you pronounce the name of this car?” referring to the S-C-I-O-N, she looked put-out and said, “Sigh-on,” like everyone knew. Well, whoop-de-do. That was the first time in my little life that I had ever heard it spoken; and as soon as I got back in my car, and tried to pronounce it on my own, I couldn’t. See if I buy that car.

Unilateral is another piss-ant word. All it’s ever done is make communication more complicated than it needs to be. Come to think of it, it’s a word that complicates everything. Why say it’s a unilateral action when everyone is wondering why the United States is going it alone in the first place? In this case, forget the Latin, and go with what people are thinking.

Finally, I am tired of hearing every politician, pundit, editorialist, newscaster, and interviewer lump me into that all-to-cozy phrase, the American People. The American People? It sounds like we went on a weekend retreat and now we all think exactly the same. That’s a crock. I, for one, would like to be referred to as a plain old American. An independently thinking American would be ok too. Or an independently thinking and sometimes irritated American would pass. An even better way to describe me would be as an independently thinking and sometimes irritated American who is tired of us going to war.

That’s another word I don’t like, but maybe you guessed that already.