Saturday, December 05, 2009

Keep The Word Ho Sacrosanct

Last year I heard someone bemoaning the fact that we might have to not use the word "Ho, ho, ho" as Santa's default laugh. This, because some idiotic ne'er-do'wells have preempted it as a shortened version of the word "whore."

That's ridiculous on many levels, which I probably don't need to specify entirely. It basically comes down to, If we don't know the meaning from the context, and if we can't separate these things out, and if we can't guess which meaning came first, blah blah blah, then we're stupider than I thought.

We used to play the game "Horse" with our dad and uncles. And we were kids, we didn't know about whores in those days. Probably kids do today, but back then, let's just say it was a more innocent time. If you know the game, you know you need to keep track of what you have. I can't think of how it goes exactly. But you step through the letters of "horse" after having shot the basketball. You come to "hor," and the kid, me in some cases, is going, "I've got a HOR." The adults are looking very uncomfortable. "He says he has a whore."

Personally, I would like to get rid of this ruining of our language by calling a whore a ho. If you're going to refer to whores, just say whore. Don't ruin Santa's laugh. He shouldn't have to change to a chuckle or a snicker. A good old fashioned Ho Ho Ho is just right.

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