Defeat-ism-ist

Years ago, a friend told me that once Tiffany got an iPhone, I wouldn’t have a girlfriend anymore. I’d have a girlfriend with an iPhone. But Tiffany is mostly great about not letting her iPhone get in the way of our life. Now that I have an iPhone, I’m mostly great about that too, but that’s because I don’t have any fun things on mine. I mostly use it just like my old flip phone except that I pay a lot more for it and carry it around very carefully.

Still. Sometimes iPhones drive me crazy. Before, we used to accept that there were things we didn't know or couldn't remember. But now when we want to know what Hoosier means while watching Indiana in the men's basketball tournament, we have to look it up.

"Wait!" I said the other day. "Let me get the dictionary."

Tiffany rolled her eyes.

I flipped through the H's as fast as I could.

"The dictionary really has everything you need," I said, praying it had the one thing I needed right then.

It didn't. There was nothing between hoosegow (slang for jail or courtroom) and hoot (the characteristic cry of an owl).

Tiffany, on the other hand, found Hoosier on wikipedia: the official demonym for Indiana residents.

I went to look up demonym in my dogeared dictionary. But it didn't appear after demonstrative.

The word that did summed up my experience in our old vs. new battle perfectly:

demoralize-ized-izing.