As the song goes – and everybody who knows me knows – I enjoy being a girl. Always have. I love dresses, high heels, bubble bath, sad movies and lip gloss. My closet is a testament to the versatility of the color pink. And I’ve never found it demeaning to be labeled “girly.” But at some point in the last couple of years, the all-knowing editors of the fashion and beauty world decided to start spelling my adjective “girlie.” As in, “listen up, girlie.” They ruined it. Now it’s tacky and illogical. None of the other verb-to-adjective forms pick up that diminutive suffix: curls/curly, whirl/whirly, junk/junky, touch/touchy, flower/flowery, smell/smelly… the “ie” dumbs it down, like a blankie or a drinkie. I could go on, but I’ll stop with this plea: Editors! Marketers! Being girly is fun and pretty. Being girlie is dim and vapid. Give us back our adjective!

p.s. Aaron says I’m tilting at windmills. What do you girls think?