Word Power...Word Power...Word Power!!!

Hanging out in the Damian Lewis Yahoo Group--I so love that guy--has produced some rather unusual side effects: a minor boost in street lingo.

I've picked up some cute new brit slang which I hope to try on my friends when I see them soon ("My former boss was bloody flecking angry! Spitting chips, I tell you!) Strangely, most of them has something to do with food.

But the greatest addition so far isn't British, it's American. And it's not even slang, it's part of the new found terms that people keep inventing just to try and explain our ever changing world.

It's the "it word" of vocabularies, terms necessary to learn in order to keep up with higher social existence. The word that could start a trend if mentioned the right way at a cocktail party, preferably before everyone gets drunk but tipsy enough to think the word brilliant.

Metrosexual.

The question was: Do you think Damian Lewis is metrosexual? Addressed mainly to the fans who've met him, who all cried with a resounding "NO!"

You go, girls.

But that's not why I remember it.

IPTU.

During my junior year at UST, I was introduced to one of the most annoying men I have ever met. He was metrosexual spat out and redux. He is so annoying that it's amazing. He's the kind of guy that you'll want to know just so you can tell people he's annoying and introduce him just so you can share the collective pleasure of being annoyed with him.

In short, he is that bad smell that you just have to keep on smelling. The filler during that awkward pause in conversation. The resident punchbag of the community.

IPTU.

His reputation was so widespread that even the teachers thought him brilliantly irritating. People from different faculties are joined by him, chatting on how such a student could be so...vain.

This guy has tried conning people out of their money, dredging up excuses to have groupmates call him at home regarding schoolwork only to leave them to the machine, or just small, stupid stuff like copying from your tests.

And yet people can't seem to lose the guy.

I had the oppurtunity to have IPTU in my Org chem lab group. It was the worst class to be in since it was at seven in the morning, and though we were all from the same major (psych) none of us ever really got along.

Until IPTU, the metrosexual glue that binds people together for a single cause: hating him.

He'd come in and we'd be in the middle of some annoying procedure--like refluxing a chemical--telling us that he was late because he missed breakfast and had to stop by McDonalds to go eat, while we three of his lab partners got up at o`fucking early and missed breakfast just to be there.

Or he'd refused to do any of the drudgework, like wash or wipedown used glassware, since he never fucking washed dishes at home. Having him say that to our faces made the feeling of satisfaction more enjoyable when the teacher learned of this and placed him on permanent glassware washing duties. For the record, none of us from the group did the dishes at home. At that time, I and the other groupmate had maids while the other one was ridiculously rich.

How he'd spend more time combing his hair and scaring some of the girls by flirting--us included. When he complained that he couldn't do the set-up for one of our experiments (we needed to perforate a can) because he didn't know how to use a hammer. I think me and the female teammates eyes were glowing red in delight when everyone started calling him a stupid wimp.

Ah, IPTU. The man we all just love to hate.

Maybe you're not wont to hate the metrosexual, but I keep wondering if IPTU somehow managed to wander off to DC and meet the author of the word. It certainly describes him.

When the word evolves and dies down--as most "it words" do, i'm sure that IPTU's legacy will live on.

When the teachers from different departments have a spat, in the lulls of half-drunken conversations, in the amused faces of the chem lab custodians who spread the rumor that he was gay (an insult to the gay community) and certainly in memories itching for something annoying.