SPOILER ALERT: $15 iTunes gift certificate goes to the funniest comment on this post. Go, chickadees.
There are certain words in the English language that, when you hear or see them used, you think that they are made up words existing for the primary purpose of messing with you. One word that comes to mind that greatly illustrates my previous sentence is the word “apropos.” Which, coincidentally, I misspelled just then as “apropros” because this word is impossible to spell. Who develops a word that has that many o’s, p’s and r’s? Is this for the sole purpose of categorizing those of us who rely heavily on the backspace button versus those who do not? It’s like that word “hierarchy,” which I finally learned how to spell after years and years of that godawful squiggly red line that we now associate with, “YOU SUCK AT SPELLING. FIX IT.”
Which, really, I don’t suck at spelling. Like, I was in spelling bees. And, I was such a cool kid (clearly) that I would have my dad give me spelling tests while we were waiting for our food at restaurants. While other children were using their placemats to draw and play with mazes, I would turn it around, crayon in hand, and have my dad, one more time, ask me how to spell “Mississippi.” GOD WAS I COOL.
Back to this word “apropos.” I looked it up in the Dictionary and, usually, this is quite a fantastic little tool for the budding author, but the example sentence they provided was this, “Isabel kept smiling apropos of nothing.” See, here’s the thing. That sentence? That EXAMPLE sentence?
Yeah.
IF YOU SAY THAT OUT LOUD, YOU SOUND LIKE YOU’RE AN IDIOT.
You can say Isabel was smiling apropos of nothing all you want, but 99.9% of the people you say that sentence to will look you up and down, think you’re kind of a pretentious jerk, and determine your credibility to be naught. Hey, don’t look at me like that. Sometimes the truth hurts apropos of… shit. I DON’T KNOW HOW TO USE THIS WORD.
I give up.
Want to know another word that sounds fake? Winningest. Totally fake.
$15 iTunes gift certificate goes to the funniest comment. For no reason other than I need to divert your attention away from my idiocy and on to something happier, like iTunes! Yay! You get to win something!
Now, go. Be funny. Be one with your funny. Take no notes from me. I’m bored of myself now.
{ 44 comments… read them below or add one }
“Honey, I’m so glad that you decided not to bedazzle your lady-parts, and apropos of nothing, I’m glad your parents have invited us over for meatloaf night.”
OR
“I’m pretty sure I just finished that bottle of tequila by myself; apropros, have you seen my pants?
Her: (coldly, with a South Philly accent) Hey! How about you stop playing video games and drinking whiskey and go to bed?
Me: (drunkenly) Hey, how’s about “no”. Here’s a better idea: Apropos you go git me some more whiskey, then YOU go to bed.
What trips me out is when I see the same, simple word over and over again, I SWEAR it’s become an unreal word, or I’m spelling it wrong. Something so damned simple, like bubble or eraser. Even simply names, like Tommy! I start going out of my mind and double checking the spelling and usage.
How the hell does the word BUBBLE start looking wrong? Bubbles are never wrong…
Hi Mika – I agree. Beetroot goes all funny on me when said too much.
You were in spelling bee’s? Way to go. I WON the African American Quiz Bowl in 8th grade. And for those scoring at home, I’m a honkey motherfucker. So your previous life achievement doesn’t change the fact that you’re struggling with a word that Google will answer for you. You should look into it, this Google thing. Quite popular with the hip kids.
That being said, I’d probably kick someone in the shins if they used it in a sentence. But that’s just me.
So you know that song “Toot It And Boot It”? I hope you do. It’s highly ridiculous and enjoyable. It’s about banging a girl and then getting the hell out of there. I know, WTF, rude, but… rap music, right? Anyway, tonight, on my way to get a lil late night In-N-Out deliciousness, I’m jammin’ to that song on the radio and my guy (not a native English speaker) asks, “What does toot it mean?” And I’m like, “You know…” and proceed to make a humping/thrusting motion. But then I realize I’ve never heard “toot” used this way. You toot a horn, not a vagina (as far as I know?). And actually, to me, toot = fart. Sooo yeah, long story short, I decided this song is actually an anthem to the act of letting go of a gnarly fart and promptly leaving the room. Toot it and boot it.*
*A technique used to the most of its potential in a room full of people so they blame it on someone else once you’re gone. YOU KNOW YOU’VE DONE IT.
(I was gonna try to be super witty and incorporate apropos into that somehow, but seriously I’m just as stumped as you are about that stupid stupid word.)
When I was in grade 6, we had a spelling bee in class, and the word “chocolate” was the word that eliminated my friend from the competition. On the way home that day, we were talking about whether it should be “chocalate” instead, but then one of us said, “Fuck it. It’s chocolate. Not a place, not a name, it’s something good to eat and who cares how it’s spelled.”
In the future, we decided, if asked how to spell “chocolate,” we would respond with “M & M’s.”
I’m not funny at all so I’m not even going to apropos to try.
See. Me too.
Apropos was the name of a hooker that came to my second grade class on career day.
Thus, apropos, six of us lost our virginity during recess that day. Including the teacher.
I was a total word geek as a kid too. Won a few spelling bees. Also used to play word games, my favorite was counting the number of vowels in the Sunday church program (is it any wonder I didn’t learn enough church-ey stuff…I was never paying attention!)
Anyways, I also read synonym dictionaries like they were going out of style. Much better than Merriam-Webster. They’ll still be producing those in paperback AND online. Cause that’s what wordies use. Smelly old yellowed pages of books. Anyways…apropos apparently means “by the by” or incidentally by synonym.
So a useful sentence might be something like “Tequila is like a sweet nectar of agave bliss with a drunken little worm absorbing it all at the bottom. Lucky bastard. Apropos, have you heard from Nicole lately?”
Edgar Allen was apropos
You have to say that out loud, slowly, for it to work. You may also have to say it in a British accent, not sure it’ll work for you lot!
The only time I’ve ever heard the word used was in the original Parent Trap movie with Hayley Mills. The pastor talks about the wedding setting being apropos. Yep, I noticed the use of a big word. I’m a nerd like that.
Your purchase of a swimming pool to go with Nicole’s ball pit balls was incredibly apropos.
Adjective definition (being both relevant and opportune). Waaaay easier to use and figure out. Apropos, the example sentence you got was mind-boggling. I would never figure out how to use the word with that example either.
When Edgar Allen Poe is at the opera his friends call him Opera Poe.
An App and a Pro walked into a bar.
The App said to the bartender, ‘Give me an Apricot Brandy for free for I am Po’. The Pro said to the bartender, ‘Give me an A Prickly Pear Shooter for free for I am Po’ too.
The bartender yelled down the bar to the bar owner, ‘The app and pro are po’, should I give them drinks for free?’
The other bartender said ‘That would not be apropos’.
Everyone laughed.
“apropos”, huh? Does it really need anything more to be funny? It’s like the word flabbergasted (wtf?). It just IS.
So I was kind of a show off in 5th grade. Like you, I thought i was a bomb speller and no one could stop me. I mean, I always got 100% on spelling tests, my dad and I would cruise the streets and spit words back and forth at each other trying to find the one word neither of us could spell. It just didn’t happen. I was on top of the world. No one could burst my bubble.
Naturally, I qualified for the 5th grade spelling bee and was ready to go own all the other little 10 year olds.
Spelling bee day came and I was so excited, my nerves were vibrating off me.. or maybe that was because of all the candy I had at lunch.. completely besides the point..
So my dad came up to the school to show his support and the Spelling Bee began.
My first word was “nuclear”. What a breeze. I whipped right through that and sat my happy ass down as one by one all the other kids got knocked out. “Alright,” I think to myself, “I’m about to own these people!”
It gets down to 3 people. Me and two other kids. It was my turn. I stepped up to the mic.
“Ella, would you spell for us the word “tongue” please”
I was cocky. I didn’t ask for the definition (because of obvious reasons) I didn’t ask for them to use it in a sentence.. I thought I had it in the bag.
“T-O-U-N-G-E” Tongue.
“That is incorrect.”
I stood there mortified and on the verge of tears. My dad was in the audience waiting to see my reaction. I ran up to him and started sobbing into his suit jacket before they could even tell me how to actually spell tongue. I’m pretty sure the bleachers were shaking with every freakin’ sob. My dad ended up having to take me home I was such a mess. It was mortifying. I still shudder when I think about it *but* I haven’t spelled the word TONGUE wrong since.
-Ella
Anytime I hear “apropos”, I immediately think of Sheryl Crow’s “All I Wanna Do” because she uses it in the first verse and I never knew what the hell she was talking about. You were cool because of your spelling bees and I have Sheryl Crow lyrics memorized, so I think I win this cool competition.
Just a FYI…apropos is actually french. It’s two words: à propos, which can translate to a mix between”by the way” and “while we’re at it”. Sooo i’m not funny but very instructive so I should get the gift card!!!
umm…do you really wanna know? cause…. the tricky thing is that people almost exclusively use it in the idiom “apropos OF such and such” meaning, “indicative of…” or “pertaining to…” or “resulting from….”
like, like… is this post apropos of someone using the word in a confusing situation in real life?
but really all you need to know is that only pseudo intellectual people use it when they say “apropos of nothing” as a way of justifying the following non sequitor instead of just EMBRACING THE RANDOMNESS!
Sorry, no funnies here, but I had to look this one up. I must be a bigger idiot. :/
I will use “apropos of nothing” frequently in conversation because I don’t know how to relay the concept of a semicolon with a facial expression.
Seriously.
I’ve tried.
It doesn’t work.
I JUST learned that I’ve been spelling Massachusetts wrong. (Note: that right there is the actual correct spelling). Maybe I should’ve hung out with you and your dad and the spelling placemats.
However, I CAN spell Mississippi because I grew up on the border of it (in Memphis, TN), and remember being taught to spell it like this:
M-I-Crooked Letter-Crooked Letter-I-Crooked Letter-Crooked-Letter-I-Humpback-Humpack-I
And that kind of has like a sing-songy rhythm (a word I’ve long known how to spell because it was my go-to in Hangman. Shit, now I can’t play you or anyone else who reads these comments).
Turns out Southerners are crazy folks.
For some reason we learned a little ditty to spell Mississippi too! Ours was a sing-songy thing but went: Am I “ess ess” I “ess ess” I “pp”? I (am)!
God that’s hard to explain in writing but that’s how I remember learning it.
I’m pretty sure Elisa in #10 has to get the prize because of her example. That nailed it.
However, she missed a couple of meanings…one of which was what I thought was the only meaning to the word. I’ve always heard it used to mean something like “appropriate” which totally made sense to me because they sound a lot alike.
“Jamie and Nicole have a pit full of balls. How apropos.”
Side note: It makes sense that the source of this word is French. I dislike French because they throw in all these letters they don’t need. Like, s. Because, seriously? It’s there. Use it.
The second meaning I found other than “by the way” is “on the subject of.” I could not see myself using it in this way, because I would truly feel more moronic than I would sound.
“Apropos spelling, apparently Jamie did it for fun on tabletops at restaurants when she was underage. What? I’m still talking about spelling.”
@Andrea
What about meAning, Knee, Know, Pneumonia, jeOpardy, Psychology, damN, morTgage…
No silent letters in English??
@Julia
I never said I liked English…it just happens to be the language I speak.
I think Spanish makes the most sense. The letters actually follow the rules and don’t have a million exceptions. Why can’t everyone make languages like that??
Jamie, someday you will meet a wonderful man. He will sweep you off your feet… at least he will figuratively. You’ll have amazing experiences together, and not all of them will revolve around coitus. Us readers will hear all about it from you. Heck, you might even document your wonderful early dates on this blog, giving all of us a warm and fuzzy feeling.
Then it will happen. You won’t know it’s coming, but it will happen and you better be prepared. He will open his mouth and utter the words you’ve been DYING to hear.
“Jamie, I think you’re the most amazing woman I’ve ever met. I’m falling for you. And because of that I have to say… I don’t think listing ‘I’ll open mouth kiss you. With tongue.’ as a reason to subscribe to your blog is apropos anymore.”
That’ll be the day.
Oh, how apropos! I’ve been waiting for my open mouth kiss with tongue!
Remember earlier today when I taught you how to pronounce this word? And yet I still don’t know how to use it in a sentence either.
God, between this and the Alaska thing people’s opinions of us as raging idiots = totally solidified.
Also, winningest!
http://img683.imageshack.us/img683/241/alitt.png
I can use it in a sentence, however, I cannot pronounce it correctly. Just ask my college classmates, when I read “a-pro-poss” aloud during a senior seminar. Graduated cum laude, right here. MEANS NOTHING.
I firmly believe that some words exist only for use in that spelling bee on ESPN every year because spelling is apparently a sport now.
I won a dictionary once for making the most small words out of combinations of letters from a larger word.
I seriously feel like too much of a word geek now.
À propos is the actual French spelling from which this lovely mangled word came from, and its meaning is “in regards to”.
Apropos of the cat food… In regards to the cat food.
The details apropos my life are quite inconsequential… My father was a relentlessly self-improving boulangerie owner from Belgium with low grade narcolepsy and a penchant for buggery. My mother was a fifteen year old French prostitute named Chloe with webbed feet. My father would womanize, he would drink. He would make outrageous claims apropos inventing the question mark. Sometimes he would accuse chestnuts of being lazy. The sort of general malaise that only the genius possess and the insane lament. My childhood was typical. Summers in Rangoon, luge lessons. In the spring we’d make meat helmets. When I was insolent I was placed in a burlap bag and beaten with reeds- pretty standard really. At the age of twelve I received my first scribe. At the age of fourteen a Zoroastrian named Vilma ritualistically shaved my testicles. Apropos scrotums, there really is nothing like a shorn scrotum… it’s breathtaking- I highly suggest you try it.
Haha, this is a French expression that simply means “about”. In French, we write it like this : “À propos”… Or you can say : “what you say is very apropos” which would mean that what you say is interesting for the matter…
Whenever I see that stupid made-up word, it makes me think it’s actually “apropro,” which sounds a little like baby slang talk for “appropriate.” Also, I don’t think the fucking dictionary has any clue what it’s talking about.
Apropos of the above comments, the gift should be donated to a charitable organization.
Ok wait. After reading this post AND the comments, I still don’t know what this word means. And I was in spelling bees too! And I was an English major! AND my mom is a college English professor! Huge. Fail.
Okay so I found your website through a work thing related to TurnKindnessOn.org and I have no time or reason to be sitting at work reading your old blog posts, yet somehow I’m completely sucked in. Jealousies!
I never understood the sentence “believe you me” as in “if you go firing elastic bands at peoples bollocks, believe you me it’ll hurt”
Ah, now bollocks – there is a great word, multi-purpose.
Examples:
You smash your thumb with a hammer … “BOLLOCKS”
Somebody tells you a big fat obvious lie … “Bollocks did you !”
Someone tells you to do something you don’t want to do … “Bollocks will I!”
A situation is not going to plan … “it’s all bollocks”
Something is rubbish … “what a load of bollocks”
You are walking through a very echoey tunnel …
” B O L L L L L L O C K K K S S S S”
And so ends my English Swear Lesson of the Day …. apropos to nothing.
Have a great weekend ;o)
À propos in french means “about” something or somebody (“acerca de” in spanish). It exists too an expression: “avoir l’esprit d’à propos”, which means you’re able to encounter the right words at the right moments (if you’re gifted). The accent on “a” letter is a grave one (HTML code: à), and it’s a preposition, gramatically I mean.
So, I don’t have any idea how you’ll be able to put this on an english sentence… I suppose the second definition suits your needs. Any interchange between languages tend to modify slightly the original meaning. But I’m sure that a snob north american will meet a use to such expression (specially if he/she is from NYC).
“Avoir de l’esprit” means you have sens of humour, and you’re sufficiently sarcastic to mock anybody, and enough cinycal to admit it.
Cheers.
wow… your vulnerability is quite humorous