poign·ant
Term used to describe a concept or plot that is needlessly elaborate, yet transparent enough to be understood by used bookstore employees pretending to be Buddhist: a poignant student film.
-Synonyms
1. pretentious, highfaluting.
-Antonyms
1. entertaining, excitative.
The problem with the word poignant, as is the case with most other words that become part of the douchebag lexicon, is that it was abused and misused to such a degree that it lost it’s power. Rather than using the word to describe things that are thought-provoking and complex, it seems like douches will tack this word onto anything they think people might not be taking seriously enough.
The last straw for me was seeing an ex-classmate post on Facebook, “Just saw District 9, such a poignant movie.” This translates to, “Hey, this movie is more involved than ‘Predator’, don’t write it off as another sci-fi piece of garbage.” But saying that would 1. require her to admit to having seen “Predator” and 2. not sound as eloquent. So let’s just toss in a word that is probably too strong for what we’re really trying to describe. As a result, anyone who would ever run into a situation where using the word “poignant” might actually be an appropriate adjective is now abandoning it for fear of being grouped with the abusers. The same thing happens in old shopping malls; once the place becomes a magnet for a few stripper clothing stores and pleather outlets, everyone else flies the coop. The two cannot occupy the same space.
By the way, I haven’t actually seen District 9, but what I have seen are a couple dozen reviews and 445,000 google search results that link it to Apartheid. Here’s a tip: if a story draws a historical parallel so obvious that anyone with an associate’s degree makes the connection just by reading the synopsis on IMDB, that’s what we call thinly veiled. You might think twice before patting yourself on the back for having figured out that “The Butter Battle Book” is about the Cold War.
Donny Does Denver 