Catch this Phrase

"I know, right?"

The snickers are blatant, taunting and wholly uncompassionate when, from a dark corner of my subconscious escapes the above expression.

"That dress is awesome."
"I know, right?"

I have no aspirations to become the Paris Hilton of Salt Lake, spreading cliché tag-lines to passers-by while simultaneously clutching a handbag, a hot beverage, and an armful of clothing, all the while steadying oversized sunglasses on the tip of my nose.

No, the truth is far less glamorous.

"Um, did you really say that?"

Yeah, I did. And it resonated somewhere in the recesses of my own pet-peeve-dom. "I know, right?" is merely a drop in a bucket of Utah slang that I have—quite unwittingly—gathered in my six-year residency.
Well, perhaps maturity is recognizing that you are your worst pet peeve.
The following are all phrases that have infected my repertoire, needling their paths from the cultural epicenters of the beehive state into my unsuspecting mind.

"No 'T' for me."

My nightmares are but an endless series of guttural stops, unapologetically replacing the proper pronunciation of a consonant.
Case in point
"East is where the mao-ins are!"
"Can you help me sew on a bu-in?"
"Of course I know him! I went to Brigh-in!"

May the gods of speech rain audible 'T's' on the Wasatch Front.

Just say "play"

There was a time I could, with some surety, claim that I had never asked a friend to "play" since the close of the 5 th grade, when just as backpacks turned to book-bags and contacts supplanted glasses, "play" transformed to "hang out."
Well, not so, say the chipper blondes of the Utah Fun Society. "Let's Play!" is the new "Wanna hang?" is the new, well, "let's play."
And who says Utah isn't SUPER fun!!?

A state of “nym”-phos

Ah, the acronym. Short, consice, with only the faintest hint of formality. More wordy states, take note, we have no patience for your verbosity here.
"I totally had a NCMO with an RM last night!"
"No, no. We had a DTR, everything's cool. But keep that on the DL."
"Are you already in PG, ’cause I'm totally still in SLC."
"umm, BTW, AF doesn't have a good YSA."
Resist the urge to LOL.

Frustrating as my slow decline into total cultural submergence may be, perhaps this charming air of locality should be celebrated. Like the “wicked awesome” phrases of New England or the “No worries” attitude down under, without our own little tag lines we’d just be in, well, a state of boredom.

Right?