"Hair-do" is stupid and so are you

The word “hair-do” is objectively terrible. The structure, the spelling, the weird hyphen.

I hate it. I hate all of it.

This particular piece of American vernacular is emblematic of issues that run to the core of what this country is. I hear you asking: What is this country, Derek?

Glad you asked.

It’s lazy and stupid.

I stand by that as I myself serve as a pretty fine example of the thing I criticize. See? Now it’s okay because the insult includes me. Now let’s dig into “hair-do”.

The first known use of the word “hair-do” was sometime in 1932. That’s right, smack dab in the middle of The Great Depression. The one so big they capitalized it. As though nationwide poverty wasn’t enough, some idiot had to create this nonsensical appellation to describe someone’s freaking hair style. Know another word for the way someone fixes those odd strands of keratin sprouting from our face box? “Coiffure”.

Tell me that word isn’t the most badass way to talk about running a comb through your mane. You can’t, because it’s awesome.

Coiffure was first used in the 1600s, so there’s really no excuse here. That dumbass in the thirties really screwed with the natural order of things.

Let’s get to the spelling.

There’s several ways that we as Americans could have chosen to immortalize this unpleasant bastardization of language in the dictionary but we settled on: hair-do.

Why is this bad? Well, if you were to comment on someone’s hair-do, the hair is already done. The tense is wrong, the strangeness of this should be apparent when you speak. Their hair isn’t a “hair-do” anymore than Donald Trump’s steak is “well-do”. The hair is done and his steak is burnt, but the point is this: our words matter.

Other potential spellings elicit thoughts of feces (doo) or bills (due) so I assume this lead to us settling on the hyphenated monstrosity you know today.

The crux is this: There’s no reason for this word to exist. It’s superfluous and therefore needs to provide a more commanding reason for its presence on the 278th page of the Merriam Webster’s great book.

Look to the never humble, “apoplectic”. It’s a stand in for “angry”, but look at it on the page. Go back! Look at her. She’s gorgeous. Her syllables roll from the tongue and elicit the heart of the ideas she was meant to convey. Bang on. GREAT word.

Karen wasn’t mad when Olive Garden forgot to bring the second basket of breadsticks. No. Karen was apoplectic, by God, and that high schooler struggling to make ends meet and pass his classes definitely understood the shades of difference in those two words.

But let’s talk about hair. You want to make fun of Donald Trump’s physics defying follicular stylings, but you aren’t sure how to reference it without “hair-do”. It’s okay. I can help.

Call it “hair”.

Nice, right? Doesn’t that feel good? More over, doesn’t that feel as though it’s correct?

We are better than this 1930s holdover from an age we all might rather forget.

What’s that? Oh yea. The thirties also gave us:

Scotch Tape

Frozen Food

The Analog Computer

The Jet Engine

Polaroid photography

Drive in movies…..

Okay, we don’t have to negate the era, but please, for the love of what is left of this nation, stop using “hair-do”. It’s dumb. And so are you.

Thanks for reading.