Snotty

Remember when you were in grade school and someone got called snotty, and it had nothing to do with a runny nose?

"Margot is being snotty!" exclaimed Karen Hildebrand because she thought that Margot Stone was putty on airs. 

"Don't be snotty!" accused Rachel Rubenstein when Gretta Landau didn't want Rachel to play four-square on the playground. 

Calling someone "snotty" always seemed to me to be something very childish.  Pissy, if you will.

Maybe, because, I never heard anyone use it after fifth grade.

After fifth grade, "Stuck Up" took root.

"Billy Winslow is being so Stuck Up because his family spends their summers at his grandmother place on Cape Cod," Sally Sebreen opined in seventh grade.

"Well, wouldn't you?  They have a compound with three houses," Karen Richards pointed out.  "Like the Kennedy's do."

In high school, stuck up stayed around, but that was because moved to Marion, Ohio, and things were always a bit slow to roll into that town's stream of teen consciousness. By that point, "What a bitch," and "asshole" took over.

Now, Cookie's 40th class reunion is coming up, and over the over other put-downs came and went.   And in the gay community, they are sets of put-downs.  Snotty, isn't one of them unless you are sick with a head cold.   "My head is so snotty, and I have copious amounts of lung butter when I cough."  Ew!

In fact, aside for children, I seldom even come across "Snotty" anymore.

Which surprised me last week when Snotty shoved its way into the conversation, twice.

The first one was in an online genealogy forum when some woman hated the Ancestry.com "rainbow" logo.  So. Much. Hate. and So Much Drama!

"Cancel my account!"  "I will never again use your site!"  "Take it down or Ancestry will be rooo-in'd!"

My ass.

But someone replied to something I wrote essentially telling one of the bible belt drama queens to take a deep breath and refrain from jumping out of her basement window to end it all.  "Build a bridge Ethel; it's not about you anyway."

The response came from a woman named Carol who wrote: "There's no need to be snotty."  Really?  Really Carol?  Are you ten?

Then the other night, in a phone call with a family member, and she accused another family member of being "snotty".

To me, after the age of ten, when you call someone snotty, it really is a snotty thing to do. Like pointing a finger and having three fingers pointing back at you.

Even the husband later said "Where did that come from?"  Honestly? Years and years of pushing things down.  Deep, deep, down.

Now, stuck up, that I get.  Putting on airs. Sure.  But Snotty?  What's next, Nanny Nanny Bo-Bo?

But snotty is so childish.  It's so second grade.

I called our friend Bruce who works in Pop Culture Language at a major university, and I asked him: "Is snotty making a come back with adults?"

And I was surprised to learn that it is "rising", with tween girls.

"I blame it on Arrianna Grande.  But I blame a lot of things on that bitch.  Like donut licking.  Who does that?  It'll go away quickly, too.  It's so pissy sounding.  And kids don't hang onto childish sayings these days.  But if it gets picked up by someone like Cardi B, watch out."

English is so rich.  If you want to knock someone down, go to hauty.  Go to conceited.  Go to self-important. Go to opinionated.  You can even go to "Now, is that really the nicest thought you can have?"  Better yet, don't respond.

But leave snotty to the kids and the tweens.  Or not.  Just remember, if you use it with me, my response is going to be a raised eyebrow and a "Really?"

Really.