Pet Peeve!

Hello and good day to one and all on this fine Thursday the 24^th! Since most of you haven’t a clue who I am, I thought I’d use this first blog post to tell you a little bit about myself. I came into the world on June 10^th, 1992, blue and cone-headed, which was wonderfully covered in peach fuzz. I had my first hair cut when I was two, and have been trying to grow it out ever since. In other words, I looked like a boy for the better part of my life. I know this because I once held a door open for an old man, and he replied with a, “Thank you young man!” – I was like, pardon..? In any case, I have since grown into a more feminine version of myself, thank goodness!

To get back to the focus of this blog, I would like to address a pet peeve of mine regarding a word that is too commonly used to refer to Redheads. You have all heard it before, and are probably guilty of using it on a daily basis. So here it is…. I absolutely despise with a passion to the point of almost hating the term; GINGER. I used to cringe every time I heard it, and inwardly glared at the perpetrator who dared utter such profanity! By definition of the Oxford English Dictionary (which I will be consulting regularly in this blog), the term ginger refers namely to a “hot, fragrant spice made from the rhizome of a plant”, secondly, “a SE Asian plant”, and thirdly, “a light reddish-yellow or orange-brown colour… usually derogatory [to] a red-haired or ginger-haired person”. May I just take a moment to highlight the word derogatory? Go ahead and call me out on my delicate disposition, maybe I’m just being sensitive, but for me the term ginger carries a tone of disrespect. And let’s be honest, Redhead sounds nicer anyways!

The problem with being open and telling people about the things you aren’t fond of is that they often use it against you to get a reaction out of you. For instance, have you ever told someone you were sensitive to tickles and asked them not to tickle you? And what did they do? Certainly not refrain from tickling you, that’s for sure, at least not in my experience. So if you follow my drift, I have some smart aleck friends who find it humorous to harass me with that unholy word! But I exaggerate, they say it with love in their eyes. Or is that a challenge….

So there, I have had my rant! In all honesty, I’ve gotten so used to hearing the word ginger that it hardly fazes me anymore. That is not to say I enjoy hearing it or prefer to be referred to as such, on the contrary, but hey, people are going to say what they’re going to say, right?

Tune in to future blog posts for some insightful stories that brought me to my opposition of the word! Posts will be every Thursday!

Do you have a Pet Peeve? Post it in the comments!

Have a great day!

– Michelle