I can't help it.

I try.

But girlfriend is just too fly.

So yeah. Once in a while, something strange pops out of my mouth.

My latest problem involves an expression that I have been using.

I blurted it out the other day when I was interviewing someone on the phone, and agreed wholeheartedly with what they were saying.

"Tru dat!" I exclaimed.

A guy who sits across from me in the newsroom raised his eyebrows so high when he overheard this that I thought his hair was going to fly off his head and hit that little green light on the ceiling that means our presses are running.

Tru dat is slang for "true that." More formally, it means: right on, uh huh, amen, etc., etc.

Peanut butter ice cream is da bomb.

Tru dat!

I read the expression on a blog a few months ago and could not wait to slip it into conversation. And, after I said it once, it kinda got stuck in my mouth.

My younger kids say it now, usually with a little fist-bump accompaniment.

If you count an 11-year-old and a 12-year-old as the hipster demographic, I'm a trendsetter.

The next expression I am going to work into my conversation is hilar, short for hilarious.

Woman thinks she's so hilar!

Urban dictionary, my go-to Web site for street talk, has it defined this way: "abbreviation of hilarious, only used by the coolest of people."

Naturally.

I want mad props when this word sweeps across Lancaster County, overheard at Park City, the Green Dragon, my mother's retirement community and everywhere in between.

I know what you are thinking.

I'm having a mid-life crisis.

After all: I am two years shy of 50.

Also: I wear reading glasses.

And: I drive a station wagon.

More proof: I capitalize and punctuate my e-mails and computer exchanges, which my college-age niece says flags me as weird or old or both (or as a former student of Luella Bradley, Manheim Township High School English teacher extraordinaire. Mrs. B! Holla!)

All right. I am willing to admit I might, just possibly, be trying to hang onto my vanishing youth.

I'm just sayin'.

(Also working that into my conversation lately. It's particularly hilar, if you ask me.)

I also am willing to admit that when I talk street, it might, just possibly, come across as a cry for help.

I recently dropped hilar into conversation at the dinner table.

My 15-year-old shot me a look of genuine concern, then said, "I am going to hurt you if you say that again."

She's such a Buzzkill Betty.

I love words, and I love pop culture, so I just cannot help myself when I hear something catchy.

Also on my to-say list:

• "Who ya tryin' to front?" gleaned from a Brittany Spears song I heard on the radio.

Translation: "Who are you trying to kid?"

Or, for those who grew up in the '80s: "Whatchoo talkin' about Willis?"

Bruce Springsteen would never dye his eyebrows.

What?! Who ya tryin' to front?

• Craptastic, for something that's so bad, it's good.

Did you see the American Idol tryouts?

Scene was craptastic, cuz.

• VOCD, short for "volume obsessive compulsive disorder."

I suffer from this condition, which means that I insist on having the volume setting on the television at a particular, "perfect" number (18, or any even number).

No you can't have the remote! You got VOCD!

Tru dat.

I'm just sayin'.


Staff writer Cindy Stauffer can be reached at cstauffer@LNPnews.com or 481-6024. The Voices column appears Mondays. blog comments powered by Disqus