Today is the day to pretend you're not doing what you're doing.

On Mannerisms

In case you haven't been following the real news, Britney Spears has hired a new nanny. Possibly in the wake of her kid being dropped on his head and then unsafely secured in the car, Britney decided that the problem was that a bad nanny was making her do it, so she got a new one.

A male.

A man nanny.

A...Manny.

That's what everyone is calling it, anyway, I guess because "Manny" is quicker to say than "Maybesitter."

I'm not sure when it started but within the last few years, it's been popular to include the word "man" to indicate that something is man-cific. It's gone just beyond man-wich. If a man gets his man-hair done, it's a 'merm.' If he wears short pants, they are man-pris. If a man has a rather big chest, those are man-boobs (which admittedly is more manly though than just regular old boobs, although probably not as desirable.) There used to be such a thing as a 'briefcase' or a 'duffelbag,' but now it's a man-purse.

Oftentimes it's simply too manluring to manvoid, even if it's mandundant. Like "manorexic." Dennis Quaid used that one. Manviously, if Mannis Quaid has an eating disorder, we can manfer that a man has anorexia, but it's too cute not to go for the manphemism. And mandals? When did plain old sandals have to be differentiated? Does a little boy-man start wearing sandals and as he grows into manturity, trade them in for the man-version?

Sometimes it's just mannecessarily man-fusing, like when "manicure and pedicure" got turned into "man-icure and man-icure," thanks to "Queer Man for the Straight Man." I mean, you can't even just say "gay guy" or "homosexual couple," now it's "manpanion." What about when two straight guys are friends? Or when a woman has a straight male friend? The semantics and manticulars are just too much.

I'm not sure when in man-time this became manpropriate. Has it really been so manclear which things are meant for men and which for wo-men? What's next? Wo-men live in houses while the guys get man-sions? Women only eat skate while the fellas get man-ta rays? Ladies get Queens and Westchester while all the dudes get Man-hattan and Man-hasset? It could get unsafe, even--who's to say in a manspital setting whether a maneurysm deserves more attention than manopause? Guys are already claiming the man-gina. You could say it's getting kind of manfair.

Frankly, though, I think the whole thing is man-tarded.