Lugubriously yours,

I've been catching up on my classic lit lately (remember classics?–the books?), and after several sightings, I've concluded I dislike the word lugubrious.

Lugubrious is not used much in writing these days (who would ever use it in conversation?), but it peppers older literature aplenty. When deep into James Joyce or Dickens, and I stumble onto lugubrious, I get derailed. 'Loo' followed by 'goo' is simply bad pairing of syllables. It brings to mind bodily unpleasantries.

Also, the definition, 'excessively mournful', says it all, with little need for a synonym. A case could be made for onomatopoeia, if lugubrious meant slimy or droolingly inebriated, but it doesn’t.

Despite its four-syllable cadence like so many lovely words, what gives me trouble with lugubrious is the hard G.

Lu-joo-brious would be more palatable, but we can't just go making up new pronunciations every time we are too lazy to look up words in the dictionary, can we? Maybe we can. George W. got away with it, though most of us ignore the nuke-u-lator and his entire approach to English. But similar examples abound. Take basil (the herb) and gala (the party), two lost causes for precisely that reason: the historically correct pronunciations are baa'-zul (almost rhymes with dazzle), and gay'-la (yes, that's right), but now everyone says bay'-zul and gal'-uh. One must ultimately choose between having grammar, or friends.

It is surprising, though, how changing a letter or two can improve a word. With minor adjustments to lugubrious, one gets salubrious, a scrumptious word with a definition to match. The first two syllables roll off the tongue nicely, and the full word is luxuriant like a big chardonnay. Salubrious evokes its definition, 'full of health', and brings to mind pleasing images of waterfalls or Angolina Jolie's lips.

Of course this kind of thinking could get us into trouble. With a bit more manipulation we easily arrive at lascivious, and from there things deteriorate rapidly, so let's stick to slamming lugubrious.

This discussion may be irrelevant, since internet lingo is totally replacing English. Even the smallest of words are now parts of acronyms: FYI… BTW…CUL8R! I recently saw BFF in the headline of a newspaper article, and had to re-read the whole piece to decipher 'best friends forever', a girl's thing apparently.

So it looks as if lugubrious doesn't have a chance— it will fade into obsolescence, and I'm FWD (fine wi'dat). Mournfully though, salubrious will likely disappear as well, and that will be a real loss. Lascivious, on the other hand, will likely carry on. TTFN!