Manning It Up

I have noticed, in recent months, a disturbing trend.

Manscape, bromance, mantrum, manorexia.  These terms are, of course, the "male" versions of various nouns and verbs.

Manscape: when a man grooms his face.

Bromance: when two dudes have a close, totally non-gay friendship that involves manly sharing of confidences and occasional shameful tears.

Mantrum: when a man throws a tantrum.

Manorexia: when a man has anorexia.

Here's my problem, particularly with the last two: none of these words were previously defined as female-only, so to designate a special word for the "man" version implies that the "regular" version is, in fact, a female version, which is totally unfair.

Mantrum, for example, really chaps my burrito.  Because only women and small children throw tantrums, right?  If a man throws a tantrum, we have to have a special word for it, because men are ordinarily so stoic and calm that the throwing of a tantrum is an event worthy of word coinage.

You cannot see, but I hope you can sense, my eyeballs rolling into the back of my head at the absurdity of this logic.  Because the media, in its J-Lo induced frenzy to coin the new "hot phrase," is using the monkey/typewriter method: they're typing a bunch of poop and then throwing it at us to see what sticks.  Here are some of the other non-words we've been plagued with recently:

Nappetizer: when you take a nap right before bedtime.

Nontree: when you order an appetizer as your meal.

Staycation: when you stay at home instead of going out of town.

None of these are new concepts, right?  So what the media is basically doing here is taking an existing concept, coining a word, and then publishing an article about it claiming it is a "trend," hence the cute new word.

So here's my report on the latest trend: "Mannaptrums."  Here's my new report:

HOUSTON - Style watchers are reporting a new trend in male behavior, called "Mannaptrums."  Businesses and corporations, in response to this growing trend among males aged 29-54, are installing mannaptrum counselors and scheduled down time to deal with the problem.

"A mannaptrum," explains Shirley McDoody, someone who works here in some capacity, "is when a man gets sleepy and then he gets cranky and needs a nap.  Clearly, this is a detriment to the business world, so the mannaptrum counseling and intervention is a nap designed to circumvent the possible business-hampering tantrum."

"I think it's great," says Sven Folksypants, a teacher, father, and devastatingly handsome man-about-town.  "Now that I have a word for this, I can get away with telling my wife that I have to do it.  Hopefully they won't ever have a womannaptrum, because then the floor wouldn't ever get vacuumed."


I think it's going to catch on.