The Return of St. John the Amenable!

     After many months abroad (one month,) and many more months of introspective laziness (many more than one,) the return of Saint John the Amenable, Patron Saint of This Kind of Behavior Makes Us All Look Bad and I Wish It Would Stop, is upon us, friends and neighbors. I have, you may have noticed (not that I'd bet money on it,) been absent from the public forum, leaving humanity to wallow in the linguistic blood of its insistent butchery, cleaving at the spoken and written word with the brutal precision that non-words like 'totes' and 'lolz' and the simply putrid 'yolo' provide. And I, humble and modest and forgiving as I am, had spoken not a word against it in some time, seeking instead my own personal solace (did not find.)
     No longer. No longer shall I feign my indifference, hiding behind gentle smiles of tolerance when I hear things like 'exspecially' and 'sherbert' and 'everyone should just speak english.' I have returned from my soul searching (meh) in the wilderness, all hairy and unkempt, like an angst-ridden superhero in the beginning of a cinematic reboot.
     So what has brought about my return, you ask? What has called me from my hermitage, to stand before you all, once again ready and willing to defy the darkness with my shining beacon of resolved refusal, punctilious persistence, and energy efficient light?
     Because Oxford Dictionaries chose the word 'selfie' as its word of the year, that's why.
     Now don't get me wrong; it's not, as has often been the case, because I object to the existence of the word. Verily, I do not. In fact, despite, or perhaps because of, how phonetically obnoxious it is, I find it one of the more useful new words to be created in recent years. This is because, and I believe I am not alone here, I find it hard to apply the more dignified term 'self portrait' to these photos, especially when so many of them have toilets in the background.
     So, as a word, it's appropriate enough, even though the necessity of it chafes a bit. Word of the year, though? Just because it's the word we choose to label the most ubiquitous display of human vanity we currently employ, does that mean it should be used to define the year? Surely, and for the sake of that self same vanity, we can find something that wouldn't expose us so fully, and with so little photo correction. So I went looking, and sure as geese love ganders, I found some things.
     First, I found that Merriam Webster had picked a word of the year as well, and that word was 'science.' At first I liked it, because hooray for science. My joy was quickly dissolved, however, because it turned out the Merry men and women of Merriam had made their selection because it had the greatest increase in look-ups. Coming from people that make their living off a book used for looking up words, that seems a tad too self-serving for a Saint such as myself. Self-serving 'science' serves no one in the end, people. Especially since so many people actually had to look it up.
     Meanwhile, over at Dictionary the Dot Com, the word of the year was designated to be 'privacy.' This is obviously right out as a serious contender, considering how little of it actually existed in its assigned year. Sorry, 'privacy,' maybe when people stop posting selfies and 'checking in' to any and every single place they happen to find themselves, you can try again.
     So we find ourselves once again stranded, I'm afraid. Lost little lambs, languishing and longing, lonely for legitimate locution. 'Selfie,' appropriately enough, doesn't quite leave enough to the imagination. 'Science,' as many of our faith based populace will enthusiastically tell you, is a bit too self-serving and biased. And choosing 'privacy' is just as ridiculous as demanding it via the internet. So, if the vanity of 'selfies,' the self service of 'science', and the disqualification of 'privacy' all get proposed, but ultimately fail, to wholly represent a year, what word should we use? Vanity, self-service, and a total lack of privacy... hmmm...
     Hey, I've got one! Yes, yes, I think I do, and I, as your (self-appointed) apocrisiary of articulation, shall provide it post-haste.
     I suggest the word 'tracasserie,' a noun, from the french, meaning "a turmoil; annoyance."
     I wonder how many people were expecting me to say 'internet.'
     I thought about it.
-St. John