As we walked into work one morning, my wife remarked, “I always have to wait for you and your jugs!”
No, I do not have breasts. The jugs Sara referred to were my two reusable drinking cups, each of which is roughly the size of an extra large McDonald’s soda. They’re both too bulky to fit into my backpack holders, so I lug them around, water in one hand, coffee in the other. They’re large enough, in fact, that it always takes a moment or two to gather them. Maybe that’s why Sara feels justified calling them jugs.
We work at the same place, so I hear this quip quite often. On this particular morning, I quipped back.
“Oh great,” I groaned. “Your annual jug joke.”
Annual. Annual meaning anything that happens at a recurring, predictable time. Annual being a synonym for periodically, of course.
“That’s not what annual means,” said Sara. “Annual means yearly.”
“No it doesn’t, it means…” I could tell from her expression that she was correct.
“You’re just kidding around with me,” she said. “Right?”
I wish I could say I was. I’m 33 years old and, until that moment, I was mistaken on the definition of the word annual.
I blame the American public schooling system. No, that’s not fair. If anyone’s responsible for my education or lack thereof, it’s me, since I wasn’t much of a student. Whatever the reason for my gaff, it was especially embarrassing because I am, according to my Instagram bio, a writer of some sort. I should probably know the correct meaning of a simple three-syllable adjective.
Sara was nice enough about it. I mean, she didn’t point and laugh, and she only brought it up again three more times. But it could’ve been worse. And ever since, I’ve been on hyper alert with my vocabulary. It’s like my whole life is a lie. What other words have I been flubbing? I ask myself. Is that even the proper application of the word “flubbing”? Or “proper”? Or “that”?
It’s been difficult to move on. Irrationally so. I drink from my jugs annually—or what I thought was annually—so whenever I sip, I hear a little voice whispering, “I bet you don’t even know what ‘gubernatorial’ means.”
“I don’t!” I want to sob back. “I don’t know what ‘gubernatorial’ means, okay!? I just heard it in Deadpool & Wolverine and thought it sounded funny.”
At least I’m right about that. Gubernatorial does sound funny. And, according to the New Oxford American Dictionary, it means “relating to a state governor or the office of state governor.”
This is all well and good, but it underscores a flaw in the English language: It’s nonsensical.
Even native speakers agree. Why is there an elaborate rhyme to remind us which letter comes first: “I” or “E”? Why do silent letters exist? Why do “P” plus “H” equal “F”? Why, I ask you, does annual mean yearly, and not what I thought it meant?
The answer to these questions, and any others you might concoct about English, is the same: Nobody knows. Dictionaries might provide explanations, but the truth is a collective shrug and a sigh and a lame assertion that that’s just how it is.
Words are like a teenager’s parents: Yes, we love them—but sometimes they embarrass us. For example, as I typed that aforementioned silly word gubernatorial (which sounds like an alien from Star Wars), my search suggested the word “guber.” This is apparently also a real word, not to be confused with the homophone “goober,” which is what our dog walker calls our dog Osi, because Osi is, in fact, a goober.
Guber means, according to the New Oxford Dictionary, “relating to a governor; gubernatorial.” These are their examples: “scores of guber candidates and aspirants attended the rally; the guber election.”
No one has ever used that word in that context or any other, ever. In fact, I’m beginning to wonder if people who write dictionaries, a.k.a. dictionarians, are just making up words at this point so they hold their jobs. And you know what? According to both New Oxford and spellcheck, “dictionarians” isn’t even a word. It sure sounds like a word to me!
See? Language makes us look, feel, and sometimes act like dopes. Words have meanings we’re unaware of. Words exist when they shouldn’t, and others don’t exist when they should.
So where does that leave us? Should I float some Aaron Rodgers-esque conspiracy theory about dictionarians and their attempts to bend society to their will? No thanks—that guy gets enough attention as it is. Instead, I’ll conclude with this. Maybe words aren’t like parents of teenagers. Maybe they’re more like my jugs—and again, I don’t mean my breasts. They’re bulky and awkward, and sometimes they don’t fit into the spaces they should. And even given the occasional spill (i.e. the misuse of a word or two), there’s still sustenance within.
Now it’s time for me to drink up. I need my annual jug of coffee.
Kyle A. Massa is a comedy author of some sort living somewhere in upstate New York with his wife, their daughter, and three wild animals. His published works include eight books, along with several short stories, essays, and poems. When he’s not writing, he enjoys reading, running, and drinking cheap coffee.
