WORD TO MY COLLEAGUE, Rick Koster. “Word,” or “word up” — should your knowledge of hip-hop slang wane — means to agree with what someone just said. It's slang. It's old. And it's lazy.

Seems Koster and I each had the vocabulary blues this week. In an online column, “Dude, This Column is Awesome,” (Wednesday, theday.com) he humorously expressed his dismay with some of the recent choices of catch phrases.

Rick, rightly, is fed up with the overuse of “dude, awesome, brother, brother-man, bro' bro'ham, my brother, hottie, wicked, no worries.” And of course, “word.”

I too have a couple of words I'd like to purge from common usage.

When we talked, Rick and I agreed that we should challenge ourselves to be more proficient and more creative in the use of the American language. Perhaps, by shouting from our own small window to the world, we might encourage others to do so.

On that front, it seems Web posting would be a good place to start. Comments posted online, including at theday.com, could go a long way toward a higher level of conversation. Online it's not so much about the slang as it is the slime. The anonymity afforded by the Web brings out the beast in many who respond to the stories, columns and blogs at theday.com.

Still, despite the negative tone, the rushes to judgment and the outright name-calling, the advent of involving the readers to interact with each other in response to news events is a societal upgrade. And it seems the local readers-turned-writers are gradually moving beyond the venomous zeal that accompanies the opportunity to be nasty without being accountable.

Lately, I have been pleased to see more people become critical of vile voices, giving rise to the tolerant exchanges of opinions. Perhaps some sort of venting period for spewing hate gradually is coming to an end. Apparently, such are the growing pains of Internet interactivity, which is, essentially, in its innocent infancy. I hope that, ultimately, more polite language will become the norm, and ideal intent of the medium will shine through.

As for my own vocabulary, there are two words I have tried to eliminate. The first is “blame.” It went away quickly and quietly. There is no intrinsic value in the word. Blame does nothing more than give someone the perceived right to be mean or unkind.

Accountability commands response, retribution and repair. Identifying fault helps to prevent a repetition of the problematic behavior. But blame, to me, is like permission to ridicule someone who made a mistake in action or in judgment.

The other word I am trying to delete is a little more difficult to explain here. And unfortunately, it has been equally difficult to purge from my lexicon.

It is “suck.”

It is used so colloquially that children of all ages toss it about like a Frisbee on a frat-house lawn.

Its most common usage is the slang form, vulgarly derived from illicit activity. And yet, one would find it utterly inappropriate to explain its derivation to a 7-year-old child who might ask how such a word came to be associated with any unpleasant experience or anyone's lack of skill at any activity.

I've often joked when I see one of my older kids pull out the vacuum cleaner — well, perhaps not so often — “That thing sucks.”

When they laugh at what they believe to be a neat wordplay, I challenge them to give me a more appropriate use of the word.

It's all about the challenge.

This is the opinion of Chuck Potter.

Article UID=6d933513-5922-433a-909f-8e6cc97593d4