"They're HEEERE!"

If aliens landed on planet Earth today, they would have very little difficulty assimilating into our culture, as long as they had one thing: an internet connection. I assume that the only reason aliens would come to visit this dying planet would be because the internet makes it look so interesting. I imagine the aliens (in my alien vision there are always three individual aliens whose names are Zwat, Zwee, and Zwibble) as happy, trivia-minded folk who have no interest whatsoever in abduction or anal probes. Their home, the Planet Where the Alphabet Starts with Z (or PWASZ, for short), is made entirely of trampolines and movie screens, and they spend all their time bouncing from one interstellar film to the next. These three jolly space travelers bop around the universe in a big, bouncy bubble searching for more and different moving pictures with sound. These aliens don’t eat, they don’t sleep, and, really, the only thing they are concerned about is entertaining their giant, alien minds. It’s no wonder they eventually stumbled across Earth, because humans, if you were to take away their need to eat, sleep and procreate, would be almost exactly like the PWASZians, except with legs and arms. And orifices, but more on that later.

On PWASZ, our alien friends have spent endless hours exploring the depth and breadth of our internet. One site in particular, that would guarantee their seamless integration into society (not even one of their favorites, really) is the one called http://www.urbandictionary.com/. Although this site has pictures and, occasionally, sounds, it mostly consists of words. It’s not that the aliens don’t like words, indeed they do, but to really grasp the full meaning of the words, they need to see words in action. Sure, The Electric Company is fine for seeing two-syllable words come together to make one, but our aliens want whole sentences, even paragraphs, to come to life. And, so, they have traveled here.

For those of you not familiar with the Urban Dictionary, I suggest that, at this time, you should take a moment to peruse it. Go ahead and look up any word that pops into your head. Stumped? How about we do it together? Come on, it will be fun! Click here and enter the word “alien” into the search box (it’s in the upper right corner and instead of “search” it says “look up” – oh, aren’t they clever?). Go on! It won’t bite! Oooh. Aaaah. Look at all those words! I wonder what they would look like if they were a movie (that’s what the three Zs are thinking, that’s for sure)? Well, definitions 1 and 3 seem to describe our bouncy extra-terrestrial friends adequately, but take a closer look at 2 and 4. Oh, dear. That doesn’t sound a bit like our foreign friends. Aliens attaching themselves to someone’s face? Acid for blood?!? Aliens bursting through an innocent man’s chest wall, effectively killing the human male??? What kind of hideous, nightmarish unknown planet are these things from? Certainly not from PWASZ, I can assure you that. Ew. Number 9 is just wrong. As I noted earlier, our alien buddys don’t even have any orifices!

*ZWOOP*

Did you hear that? That was our happy-go-lucky alien friends bounding directly through Earth’s exosphere. Bye, little guys! *sigh* I can’t say as I blame them. And therein lies the problem with the Urban Dictionary. Often times it’s just TMI (too much information). Since the UD is comprised entirely of user submitted material, technically anyone can post any definition of any word they see fit. You could, if you were so inclined, return to the site right now and provide your own definition of the word “alien.” However, you haven’t yet finished reading this article, which I have put a lot of time and effort into making interesting and pleasurable to read. Leaving now would be considered rude. I am almost done. A few more sentences and you’re free to edit the entire Urban Dictionary and every Wikipedia entry while you’re at it. But, I digress.

The UD is not like the OED, which is edited by over 300 scholars, researchers, readers, and consultants, including John Andrew Simpson, British lexicographer and the OED senior editor. The last time the OED was updated was in 1989. The third planned edition, the OED3, is slated to be complete somewhere in the vicinity of 2037. Allow me to put this into perspective: the OED2 was released when I was but a mere blush of a girl at 18. When the OED3 is released, I will be well into my years as a senior citizen at the ripe old age of 67. Yes, yes, 67 is the new 57, and by the time I get to be that old it will probably be the new 47, but that still qualifies as old in my book. And don’t try to sell me that “you’re only as old as you feel” crap, because I am only in my late 30s and I FEEL like I am in my late 30s. I’m no 18-year-old, that’s for freakin’ sure.

ANYonefootinthegrave, the point I am trying to make here is this: if you require board certified, lexicographically researched, bona fide English definitions of authentic words, use the OED. However, should you need a less stuffy, layman’s term, slang, jive or streetwise definition, and you aren’t easily offended by obscene material, usually sexual in content, that may or may not be a completely sarcastic explanation of said terminology, by all means, use the Urban Dictionary.

The Urban Dictionary is not all bad. A search for “Kimberly,” my name, presented me with this result:

Urban Dictionary: Kimberly

WARNING: Do NOT, for the love of God, look up ANY of the following words or phrases, because once you’ve read them, they can’t be unread. Those images will be burned immediately and permanently into your mind and, most certainly, your everyday thoughts. I have three words of caution for you: scarred for life. You have been warned. DON’T DO IT!

The No-No List:  waffle iron, docking, Tony Danza, munging, Dutch rudder, Superman, Houdini, glass bottom boat, pink sock, Abe Lincoln, Alaskan Pipeline or Mexican ANYTHING.