<p>I sent an email to our girls and our daughter-in-law a few weeks ago saying it might not be a bad idea to stock up on staples again.</p><p>Crickets. Not a single response.</p><p>Late that evening, I received a text from our oldest daughter saying, “Now I get it! I thought you meant staples, like paper clips and rubber bands. I thought, why would we need those?”</p><p>Unreal, I thought. And I thought it out loud.</p><p>I asked her sister if she got my email about staples and what she thought it had meant. She, too, thought I meant staples for a stapler but didn’t want to say anything because she figured I was having a “Mom Moment.”</p><p>First of all, I didn’t know they talk about me having “Mom Moments.” Secondly, why would a “Mom Moment” constitute going to Staples to buy staples?</p><p>They’re bright girls. You’ll have to take my word on that.</p><p>It’s not them. It’s me. It’s always me. I’m out of date.</p><p>Dude.</p><p>That’s out of date, too.</p><p>Yo!</p><p>Archaic words and phrases make for a steep and slippery slope. Help! I’m falling and I can’t get up.</p><p>I have a browser tab set to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary and not just so I can waste time repeatedly taking vocab quizzes until I can place in the top 10 percent. M-W.com is highly educational. Awhile back, they featured words that are no longer used. Among them were britches, gallivant, slacks, smitten and swell.</p><p>I still use gallivant and smitten and I’m going to keep using them. They’re staples. To my hipster credit, I quit wearing slacks years ago and switched to pants, although you wouldn’t know because they look exactly the same.</p><p>I’ve always enjoyed colloquial sayings as well. A college roommate from Kentucky used to say our apartment looked like “the wrath of the whoop-de-doo.” I’ve used that for years and will continue to use “wrath of the whoop-de-doo.” I still can’t define it — but I know it when I see it.</p><p>I have a friend with so many idioms I keep a computer file on her. She says things like, “I tell you what, that man has more money than Quaker has oats.”</p><p>Wouldn’t it be swell to know someone like that? You could gallivant around the world.</p><p>If there is unpleasant business ahead, she’ll say, “I’d rather have a spankin’.”</p><p>She might, but she should hike up her britches and keep moving.</p><p>A friend’s father talks about people “getting all fizzed up.” That’s a good one, too. He got it from his father. The man still using the phrase turns 96 this month.</p><p>The girls now understand that I meant pantry supplies (worked in another oldie), not office supplies, when I mentioned staples. I told them not to get all fizzed up about it.</p><p>When it comes to antiquated word choice, I’m as independent as a hog on ice, and I plan to remain as independent as a hog on ice.</p><p>Lord willin’ and the creek don’t rise.</p>
