Mommy Blogger – I wouldn’t have any problem with this term if it was purely descriptive. I am a mommy who is a blogger. A mommy blogger. But almost never in the history of mommy blogging has someone said it without the undertone of snide disdain as if writing on the internet about your kids is somehow less deserving of respect than writing on the internet about your dog or cooking or celebrities or fashion. Newspapers use the term to imply the entire genre is moms blogging about potty training and visits to the farm who will stoop to anything for freebies and sponsors and a new vacuum cleaner. (One article in particular springs to mind.) If that’s all “mommy blogger” means these days, we need a new term for the eight zillion mom blogs that DON’T fit the category.

Lactivist – A couple weeks ago a friend Tweeted a link with a comment to the effect that she thought her “lactivist friends” should check out. I am 99.9% sure all she meant by that statement was “this article is about a breastfeeding advocate and thus those of you who also breastfeed would probably find it interesting”. Of course, that’s way too long for Twitter, so lactivist was good shorthand. Unfortunately, I broke the First Rule of the Interwebs (NEVER READ THE COMMENTS) and read the comments, where the word lactivist was equated to “breastfeeding Nazi” “judgmental” and “moms who should mind their own business”. I fear “lactivist” is falling into the same pattern as “feminist” where even those who actually ARE lactivists are hesitant to use the word for themselves, simply because of the negative connotation. Until lactivist can be reclaimed, I’d rather use “breastfeeding supporter” or even just “mom who breastfed and can offer you advice if you want it.”

Awesomesauce – No offense Twitter, it’s just a stupid word. It may have been clever the first five (hundred) times but now it’s annoying. As is all other kinds of -sauce: coolsauce, lamesauce, niftysauce, awfulsauce. The only kind of sauce I want to hear about is a nice Bearnaise sauce for my eggs or a spicy red clam sauce for my pasta. Mmmmmm….sauce. See, this is what happens with food slang and pregnant women.

Tar-jay – Dude, it’s called TARGET. Their logo is a giant TARGET. They’re headquartered in Minneapolis, which may be as far away from France as you can get. If you need to change the name to make it sound fancy a more accurate accent would be the Swedish Chef, which is actually less fancy than just saying TARGET.

FML – It stands for “f*ck my life” and is usually used in such awful circumstances as “I’m out of organic Greek yogurt for breakfast! FML!” and “My kid ripped up my Vogue magazine! FML!” and “I lost a ton of weight on this all-chocolate and wine diet and none of my clothes fit! FML!” PERSPECTIVE, PEOPLE!! Even when you have a flat tire or the baby cries all night or your job sucks it’s not really worth such a dramatic statement. I may be turning into my mother, but every time I see FML I feel like saying “There are starving children in Africa who would kill for your life and your non-organic yogurt!”

And the one I love…

Douche-canoe – Copyright The Bloggess (as far as I know – maybe SHE’S the douche-canoe and totally stole it from someone else). Accurately describes everyone from the guy driving 55 in the left lane to the idiot on the internet who says stuff like “I would NEVER feed my kid Goldfish crackers, we only eat bread made from wheat we grow and grind ourselves” to your second cousin’s brother-in-law who makes unnecessary inflammatory political comments during family dinners. Douche-canoe.