11.28.06
Happy Tuesday, lexicographically
Yay, it’s Tuesday!
What’s Tuesday?
According to one of fourteen definitions in the Urban Dictionary, Tuesday is “used as an adjective to describe one’s dejected mood and despondency two days after the end of the weekend. Especially if one has partied all weekend using chisel and become sculptured.” (I.e., “I’m feeling Tuesday.”)
It is also “A general purpose insult. Last element of the acronym ‘See (C) You (U) Next (N) and the word in question, and useful in situations where cursing is inappropriate.
“Person 1 – ‘That guy over there took my parking space!’
“Person 2 – ‘What a Tuesday.’”
R.B. discovered the Urban Dictionary only recently, when he needed to know the difference between pimpslap and bitchslap. He has been told the UD has been around for quite a while, and he also has been asked why it took so long for a 
journalistic word worker to find it. Who knows? Perhaps R.B. is just old and slow, he said defensively.
Anyway, if you’re as pop-culturally delayed as R.B. is, the UD is a kind of Wikipedia of slang, except it’s even less intellectually disciplined than that online encyclopedia. The UD is full of misspellings, obscenities, grammatical errors and doubtful (if hilarious) definitions. Anyone can proffer a meaning, whether or not it’s actually used in the manner cited — and that leads to some lively online donnybrooks.
Whether the UD will ever become as useful as the OED is open to debate, but it’s wonderful browsing, and if you’ve got teenagers in the house, it’s handy for decoding their baffling conspiracies. Be warned that’s it’s often both deeply offensive and highly funny, as in the entry on God.
Be warned also that the UD is addictive. Looking up one word can result in hours of hyperactive wallowing in a thicket of hyperlinks.
