As many of you probably know, I am one of those people who is all for the preservation of the English language. I’m a grammar freak, and I hate it when other people use bad grammar, especially in writing. I don’t like to use the term “grammar Nazi”, being Jewish and all, but I guess you could say that’s what I am.

Because of this, there are at least a few things about current slang that bother me. What gets me the most right now is the use of the word “legit”. Legit is an abbreviation of the word “legitimate” or “legitimately”, and when used correctly, I really don’t mind it. For example, “I legit failed my test” is perfectly fine. You legitimately failed your test, which is grammatically correct, as well as logical.

However, some people use “legit” in the weirdest ways. One day at lunch when my friend Jenny was talking about her parents, she said “my parents are so legit”. Okay…? So your parents are legitimate. I would hope so. I would hope they are legitimately your parents, and it would be nice if they weren’t illegitimate bastard children either. What she meant to say was something along the lines of that her parents are cool. What the heck?

As you probably know, she’s not the only one. So many people use “legit” in that way. It’s really strange to me. I don’t know how people can think that the use of that word in that context actually makes SENSE. It doesn’t. Go ahead and look it up if you’re doubtful.

On that note, I don’t understand the phrases “hot mess” or “hot damn” either. I don’t have anything against them grammatically, or really at all, but I just don’t understand them. What qualifies a “hot” mess? What’s the difference between saying “you’re a mess” and “you’re a hot mess”? If someone could help me out here, that would be great. The same goes for “hot damn”. Is there some sort of distinction between when “hot damn” is a correct exclamation in place of “damn”, and when it is not? O.o Help me out here.

Speaking of helping out, I have to get up early tomorrow morning to help at the Purim carnival at my temple. It’s early for a Sunday anyway; I have to be there at 8:00am and stay until it ends at around 3:00pm. That’s ten minutes longer than one of my school days, which go from 7:45am to 2:35pm.

What makes me angry about that is that I’m the one who volunteered. The carnival is run entirely by volunteers, and people offer their time to help make it a success. I don’t think the people in charge of the carnival should really be telling the volunteers that they “have to be there from eight to three”. They should be asking the volunteers when they are available, perhaps suggesting times during which they need the most help. Instead, this is what they said: “If you’re volunteering, you have to be there for both shifts, unless you have a conflict. If you have a conflict, you need to be there for at least one shift, and you have to let us know.” That just seems wrong to me. I’m glad to help out, but I’d like not to be told when I “must” be there as if it’s a paid job or something. If I didn’t need community service hours for NHS, I would make up some excuse so I would only have to work one shift. Actually, I wouldn’t have even volunteered at all.

At least I get a free t-shirt for helping.