you've come a long way baby

bad taste is a cruel mistress. i believe that there is something fundamental to the nature of certain things that marks them unerringly as low and classless. something deep within the essence of inanimate objects that whispers “i belong at a stock-car race.” the color turquoise, paraphernalia with the budweiser logo on it, and pretty much every occurrence of the male pony tail (sorry guys) are prime specimens of this unalterable taint. black jeans, gold chains, vinyl siding, you get the idea. i could spend all day listing this nonsense (which was all napoleon dynamite seemed to be, sorry again guys), but perhaps the eternal pillar of tackiness and the subject of today’s derision is the word ‘baby.’

yes, ‘baby,’ subject of a thousand pop songs. to me at least, there is just coarseness to the word that i can’t put my finger on and can’t get comfortable with. maybe it’s the “ee” ending. maybe it’s the comparing grown women to infants as a way of expressing affection. whatever it is, use of that word, especially by characters who seem to demonstrate decent elocution at less cringe-inducing points of a film and parents addressing their over-3-year-children, gets under my skin like the shrill chattering of adolescent girls.

in all of the english language it may be my least favorite noun. it has only three appropriate uses:
1. in reference to a newborn
2. the ironic george costanza fashion: “i’m back baby!”
3. gauging the classlessness of people who use it in the unapproved fashion.

anything else deserves an interaction with my aforementioned punching-squad. its up there with the non-ironic 'mama,' 'daddy' and 'doggy.' there's something about those youngster words ending in vowels. guys, once more, my apologies.