I learned a new word here on the board - “stabby.” It means that you’re so angry you feel like you want to stab something/someone, or at least that’s what I think it means.
When someone says they feel “stabby”, do you think any less of them as a person? Do you think it’s normal? Do you see the person as violent, or think they have something wrong with them?
Just wondering.
(I’m not trying to put down any of you who said you’ve felt “stabby” - not at all. Personally I don’t have a problem with people saying/admitting that.)
I wouldn’t think any less of you, as long as it didn’t become an ‘every day thing’ for you.
Yesterday evening, after sitting in traffic, spending several hours trying to park (OK, it was maybe 7 minutes), and then fighting my way through the idiots at the grocery store, I was definitely feeling ‘stabby’ for a while.
Well, first, I recognize it as a hyperbolic expression of frustration. I seriously doubt that someone who actually felt murderously angry would resort to describing it with cutesy colloquialisms.
So… would I think less of that person for what, exactly? Being frustrated? Of course not. Using cutesy colloquialisms? As long as they have a robust enough vocabulary that “stabby” was not every third word out of their mouth, no, it wouldn’t bother me. “Stabby” this and “stabby” that repeated every five minutes might grate on my nerves after a while, though.
This is where I am. I also don’t think people literally see red or go crazy when they say they are.
Like others have said, because this is a new term, it registers in a way, say “drives me crazy” doesn’t. So it gets annoying with repeated use. Plus, because it’s new, frequent use feels affected.
I say it at work all the time. My nurses know to round up a few patients who need abscesses drained, skin lesions biopsied, or toenails removed when I say it.
I guess now that you mention it, it does seem very melodramatic and I think people who use it, well I might take them a little less seriously in general. Unless they are LITERALLY feeling like stabbing something, in which case they wouldn’t be using the cutesy word “stabby” and I would be afraid of them more than thinking less of them.
I often get the job of unpacking things shipped to us, which are often padded with puffy plastic bags. We save some for use sending things of our own, but we tend to get more than we send out. So when there are too many sitting around, I toss any additional ones that come in. To make them not take up an unreasonable volume in the trash, I poke holes in them with a letter opener.
Once, while I was doing this, I said aloud, “You know, one of my favorite parts of my job is the stabbing. Lots of people are amateur stabbers, but I get paid to stab!”
My coworkers looked at me strangely, but they know my weirdness.
I think if it as a joking kind of thing, a way to laugh at the frustration of it all.
Besides,
if I really wanted to stab somebody I would never tell them I am feeling stabby.
When I was younger I might have given them a heads up so I could enjoy the thrill of the chase.
Now that I am older I prefer the sneak attack. It’s easier and less messy that way.
I’ve encountered the word “stabby” only on message boards, and seemingly used only by Americans – so far as I’m aware, it’s not used in real life here in the UK.
It rather irritates me, as both “cutesy” (as several PPs have said) and melodramatic; but nobody has appointed me as the language police…
I have the impression that it’s a word employed chiefly by women. I’m not a misogynist (would like to think I’m not, anyway), but I quite often find annoying, expressions which women particularly, seem to relish and use a lot. “Stabby” is the latest of many instances of that, in my life.
I think once in an online forum I made a “Stabbity stab stab” comment. I meant it in a humorous over the top manner and that’s how it was perceived. I wouldn’t advise using the word or any form of it in a child custody hearing, though. Maybe it’s a matter of context?
