I have blogged about this topic before. However  redundancy has never deterred me in the past, and I’m certainly not going to let it start doing so now!

As an ex-English/literature educator, I am acutely aware of the usage (and misusage) of our language.

It strikes me when somebody uses the non-word: “snuck”, especially in print. (The proper past tense of “sneak” is “sneaked.”)

My ears perk up when the word “nuclear” is pronounced “nucular”, particularly when it happens in a Presidential (now Ex-President – ial, thank God!) speech.

When somebody dangles a participle, I am all over it! Again, it is even more noticeable when it is done in print, and everybody does it! Even famous, well-educated people of letters such as Emily Dickinson and Mark Twain.  (By the way, the sentence I just wrote is not a sentence at all, but a sentence fragment.) Winston Churchill was criticized once for dangling a participle, and the quick-witted man lashed out at his critic by saying something like, “That, sir, is an insult up with which I shall not put!”

Anyway, I digress here. 

Now, please understand that I am a sensitive, loving, heterosexual man. Therefore, the opinions that I am about to express are my reality.  These statements are not to be misconstrued as a judgement or a put-down to anybody, any sex, or any “alternative lifestyle”.

Okay? Okay.

Here goes.

Women use the language differently than men do, and they voice certain observations that men would never in a million years utter.  (We may think some of the things that women say, but we would be drummed out of The Testosterone Society of the Universe if we ever dared to speak them.

 

The following are offered as examples to back up my point:

 

When’s the last time you heard a guy say, “Do you remember what happened the last time you made love to me?”

Never, right? Guys don’t say “when you made love to me.” We might say, “when I made love to you,” but never “when you made love to me.” We fellas like to do the “doing.” If I may paraphrase a line spoken by Tom Berenger in Looking for Mr. Goodbar,  “We’re pitchers, not catchers. Right?”

 

Along that same train of thought, when’s the last time you heard a guy say, “make love?” ONLY if his girlfriend/wife is around! We have other euphemisms for it, the most popular, and least offensive, is, “fooling around.” I’ve asked the question, “Wanna fool around?” thousands of times in my life.  I truly don’t believe I’ve ever said, “Wanna make love?”

 

Guys don’t tell other guys that they look “cute.” Women do it all the time to each other, but guys???? Uhn-uh. Doesn’t happen.  The best way to clear out a men’s room would be for a guy standing at one urinal to say to the guy standing at the next urinal, “Hey, you look cute in those shorts.”

That comment would either clear the place out like the Calgary Stampede, or somebody would end up being punched in the head.

 

How about this one? “I like that shirt on you.  Yellow is definitely your color!”

Nope. Guys don’t comment like that about the attire of other guys.  They might say something like, “I really like that shirt you’re wearing,” but they would probably not even know why they liked it.  And, most definitely, they would never, never, NEVER comment on the color, or the collar style, or the cut.

 

Same thing with hair styles.  When’s the last time you heard a guy turn to his male friend and say something like, “Hey there, Bart! I really like what you did with your hair!”

 

Guys don’t have “tummies.” We’ve got stomachs and guts and abs, but not “tummies”. When’s the last time you heard some Hell’s Angel named Snake say something like, “That last beer I chugged isn’t sitting right.  My tummy hurts.”

 

A close relation to the word tummy is yummy. Women use them both.  Men NEVER do.  Again, let’s visit Biker Snake at the local saloon.  He just gets done downing a shot and a beer. He slams the long neck bottle down on the bar, wipes his mouth with the back of leather-laden hand, lets out a belch that shakes the place to the rafters and says, “The Budweiser was yummy!”

Ain’t gonna happen.

 

Women also do think about things the same way that men do.  And they certainly don’t think about sex as often as men do.

 

Here is a true story that illustrates my point.

 

Mary Ellen and I were in a restaurant with another couple just yesterday. We were all ordering lunch.  Mary Ellen ordered a sub.  The woman who was taking the order asked her, “Would you prefer six inches or nine inches?”

I kid you not! That the was the question!

Upon hearing that, this scenario immediately played out in my mind:

I imagined myself looking at the waitress and saying, “Give her six inches and claim that it’s nine.  I do it all the time.”

I looked over at my buddy, and he just rolled his eyes.  He got it.

I looked at his wife, and she just kept looking at her menu, thinking about what she was going to order. She didn’t get it.

Mary, who immediately answered, “Six inches” as she closed her menu also didn’t get it.

They live in a different universe than we do.

 

Finally, NOTHING that a man wears, nothing about his physical appearance, nothing about his personality, and nothing that he says is CUTE to another man.

 

Que Nada.

 

Trust me on this one.