Autoantonyms: When 'Ridiculous' Isn't So Plain

OMG, the past 72 hours of NBA free agency is starting to rival a Niagara Falls high wire act. As the final landing of the Harvard-educated point guard intensifies, the Rockets are either on track for a Linsanity blastoff or New York will plunge to a Linless low. Media, both mainstream and social, are bursting its opinion seams and Carmelo Anthony isn’t alone in tossing the word ‘ridiculous’ like a Chris Paul/Blake Griffin alley-oop.  

In fact, it was Anthony, Jeremy Lin’s Knicks teammate, who set off the commentary blaze and with gunfire rapidity, his intended meaning was assumed to be less than complimentary. Conversely, in slanguage, ‘ridiculous’ conveys a positive slant, characterizing something so extreme that it is worthy of rousing applause.

If you’re a b-ball fan, familiar with the invented term ‘ridunkulous,’ you realize the stamp signifies homage to a monstrous dunk. Of course, I don’t claim to know what Anthony meant, but an accomplished writer would’ve pried context’s door wide open. Anthony’s ‘ridiculous’ reference when used as an autoantonym, a word opposite of its conventional meaning, was a strong possibility.

And if you’re still shaky, try this on for size: Shoe freaks bearing beer budgets hyped by champagne tastes would classify Christian Louboutin’s coveted red –soled pumps as ridiculously priced but yet ridiculously artistic in design. Just ask Oprah if you’re not ‘in the know.’      

Furthermore, to be perfectly clear, did you really think Michael Jackson was confessing a character flaw when he pronounced himself ‘Bad’? For those confined to the constraints of unimaginative language, the King of Pop meant good. Luckily, his multitude of fans worldwide recognized his ‘badness’ as pop culture perfecto even if you didn’t.        

Baby Got 'Back'? Back Not Required

I conniption-fit cringed when I read this sentence in a major newspaper admonishing a NFL player’s performance: ‘(Jacoby) Jones seemed to revert back last season…’ Defined by Merriam Webster, the verb ‘revert’ means "to come or go back (as to a former condition, period or subject)." Thus, the attachment of ‘back’ to revert is redundant and wasteful like a discarded crab cake sandwich for which you just forked over $18.00.     

If this example registers a mild grammatical error, consider another violation frequently peppered in workplace emails: Although ‘Read receipts’ serves a limited acknowledgement function, I take offense to a writer’s ‘respond back’ directive. Are you kidding me, since ‘respond’ suggests a reply should be returned?! In this instance, ‘please respond’ is sufficient.  

And if that’s not illustrative enough of a communication F-game, check this out: A prospective candidate casually mentioned that she’d recently ‘relocated back’ to Texas during an interview. Since command of the English language is my professional expectation, it would’ve been more palatable had she said she’d ‘returned to Texas’ instead of ‘relocated back.’ After all, the prefix ‘re’ is synonymous with the original place.

The more back baby has, the better, some say. This preference rings a lyrical bell for another Kanye West ode to Kim Kardashian, his current flavorite who is packing plenty ‘back.’ For those unhip, ‘back’ is equivalent to ‘junk in the trunk’ or a plump derriere.  

Getting back in the language saddle requires language liposuction and although throngs may find ‘back’ attractive, the word has no rightful place in the examples above.   

Cracking the 'Cracker Counties' Code

Did you happen to hear Politico’s Jonathan Martin say ‘cracker counties’ during an MSNBC interview with Chuck Todd recently I missed it, but when I read the account, my reaction meter registered OMW as in “Oh my word.” Literally. Are you kidding me?! This can’t be professional journalism. Right?

As Martin later explained, ‘cracker counties’ is an endearment central to Floridians, referencing residents with long term generational ties to the region. Since America at-large is likely unfamiliar with the term, Todd bore the journalistic responsibility of clarifying its meaning. To my knowledge, he didn’t.     

Now if we detach the word ‘counties’ from ‘cracker,’ we’re left with the pejorative commonly used as a vile distinction for poor, uneducated whites. Fast forward to 2012 and the expression ‘let’s get crackin’ slung by hip hoppers has nothing to do with color. For the unhip, it means let’s proceed. 

Given mainstream media’s premature proclamations and blatant misstatements, including John King’s recent gaffe where he referred to Mitt Romney as Governor Mormon, it’s mildly shocking that many called ‘cracker counties’ into question. And don’t overlook the fact that the messenger matters and if a minority had spewed the term publicly, a backlash behemoth would’ve resulted.  

Let’s be clear, political immersion doesn’t make one a journalist: Todd attended George Washington University without graduating and the Hamden Sydney College from which Martin graduated doesn’t currently offer a journalism program.      

Although journalism, once the bedrock of peeling fact from fiction in an unbiased manner, has obviously sputtered, audience expectations remain the same: Stick to the facts and shed the bias. 

MSNBC Interview with Chuck Todd and Jonathan Martin

See John King's 'Governor Morman' Gaffe