Exorcising my Personal Demons

My first week of library school (which I insist to prosepective students, is exactly like Hogwarts) I noticed something strange about Watchers. They speak an entirely different language and they don't even seem to notice it. Most notably, they pronounce everything. When I began, I innocently thought that the School of Library and Information Science was pronounced S-L-I-S. How silly of me. No, the Watchers (and the Watchers-to-be) around the joint call it"slis." Okay, I can see that. It's even kind of cute. Same with a Marc record or YALSA. It saves time and it flows, more or less. The interesting part is when they start trying to pronounce the unpronounceable. For example, OLC. Isn't it easier to just say O-L-C than to struggle with something that sounds like ohelk. I've heard it done. I promise. Or NOTSL. Ts and Ss were not meant to be pronounced in that order. One would presume, as Watchers, they know the rules of language. Apparently one would be mistaken.

Soon after joining the SLIS, I found myself sputtering along to the most common acronyms. I passed over the more difficult ones. I suppose I am not that librarian enough yet. I refuse to admit I ever would, but give it time. Eventually I will forget how normal people speak. Still, when I speak of librarianship those acronyms pepper my speech and confound the muggles. Generally, though, I do not speak of these things in proper company and so the threat was limited.

Then, I took a YA services course.

The acronyms here are not the problem. Really, there is not much extra offending vocabulary. Except for one word.

The E word.

Edgy.

I didn't even notice it at first. My professor started speaking about "edgy" literature and "edgy" clothing. I didn't recognize it as anything other than that professor's own peculiarity. But then I started reading YA blogs and publications. It is everywhere. Whenever anyone wants to push YA material. And the weird thing is, only YA Watchers use this word. Ever. I tried to explain the phenomenon to a coworker on the reference desk. "Edgy?" she pondered. "Does that mean it's sharp? Poignant?" Even she, a fellow acronym-pronouncer, didn't understand the meaning of the word. Now, try using the word with teens. Tell that girl that her purple and black striped wristwarmers are totally edgy. Or let that teen know that he just performed an edgie ollie on his skateboard. Chances are, they will back away slowly from the frighteningly unhip adult.

Unlike the acronyms, this word has edged its way into my everyday speech. I'm looking for clothing and I think, "Kaufmanns is so boring. I'm looking for something edgy." I flip through a few more shirts before I realized what I just thought. My blood runs cold. Have I actually integrated this word into mundane, non-Watcher, speech?

I propose a ban on the word "edgy" in all professional YA literature.

Why? Well, I suppose the use of it just makes me ... edgy.