SCL

I’ve never been to Erie, Pennsylvania because I don’t trust alligators.

I saw the movie “Lake Placid,” about a 30-foot alligator that was eating people and I made a decision in my heart at that moment that I would never go to Erie, Pennsylvania. (What’s that? Lake Placid isn’t in Erie? Lake Erie is? That makes sense, I guess, but regardless, without Bill Pullman to protect me, who is the poor man’s Bill Paxton by the way, I’m not getting within a thousand miles of Erie.)

But in addition to their alligator problem, a friend from Erie recently told me something else that is plaguing Erie – the use of the word “gospel” as a verb.

I doubted her at first, after all, people who live under the constant threat of alligator attack tend to be a little shifty, but the more she explained the situation, the more I believed her. Apparently, in churches near her, people are saying sentences like this:

“Are we gospelling our towns the way we should be?”

“I want to gospel my neighborhood.”

“I personally believe that when it comes to reaching teens, we need to gospel like a hurricane.”

OK, I made up that last one, but the other two are true. And although they feel a little weird at first, maybe “gospel” is the new “love on.” Maybe instead of saying, “I loved on my friends at school,” 2009 was the year of saying, “I gospelled my friends at school.” Fair enough, but the year is almost over, which begs the question, what’s next? What word will we verb in 2010? I have three suggestions.

3 words we’re going to verb …

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