What are those two dots called?

You know how sometimes you see the two dots over an o? What do you think that's called (and I use the singular because the two dots are a unit. There is never just one dot)? It turns out that it's called 2 things. If it's over one vowel it's an umlaut, which itself sounds like an appetizer, and it changes the way the vowel is pronounced. If it's over a double vowel, it's a diaeresis, which looks like a medical condition, is pronounced, according to the New Yorker, "die heiresses," and gives an idea of which vowel has emphasis or if they are to be said as a diphthong, which itself sounds like, oh never mind.

For me, I'm going to use it as an umlaut, to accent the word boring, or böring as I will now call it. It should be pronounced as if there's a double o, like booring.

Why am I doing this? Because I've decided I hate the word, or at least the way it's overused. People have begun to attach the adjective böring to describe anything that isn't as exciting and attention-grabbing as, say, a new text message or Snapchat. Books are böring, classes are böring, hanging out and relaxing is böring.

Here's my thesis: Anything can be termed böring if you pay it insufficient attention and refuse to look past whatever immediate gratification it can bring. And on the flip side, anything can be interesting if you really pay attention and think about it. Böring is not an intrinsic characteristic of anything- it's a frame of mind, dependent totally on the person.

You know this is true; how else could, for example, two people go to a museum and one describe it as fantastic and another as böring? It's the same stuff. How can it be both? It's a bunch of art or science or whatever, and it only gathers adjectives when people attach them.

This problem is particularly prevalent among adolescents. My kids used to sit at their computers and phones and converse by Facebook or text how böred they were. And I used to say- "Of course you're böred, you're sitting around looking at a screen instead of actually doing something." Whoever you're "chatting" with? Go see them! Walk, take the bus, something! Get up! Go do something!

I know this somehow our fault as baby boomer parents, because everything is, but I'm sorry, get over it.  I am proud to say that I am never böred. I can always find something or someone worthy of my attention, and if you're actually thinking about something, that's engagement, not böredom. Give it a try. Think, "I am going to look for something interesting in everything I see and interact with today. I will not dismiss anything, either because of my first impression, or even worse, because of what someone else said."

And if someone tells you that a class, teacher, book, place or whatever is böring, then tell them no, that the greater likelihood is that you're böring.