There's artistic creation that takes work (Mamet, Burgess, etc.), and there's artistic creation that takes none. Cody's writing is the latter. For good writers, stylized language blankets underlying themes, which emerge sometimes despite, and sometimes because of, the language. In Juno, the stylized language IS the theme. Cody's script is jarring not because I've never heard anyone say "Honest to blog," and not because no one has ever said "Honest to blog," but rather because "Honest to blog" is a creation that should remain, always and forever, in the personal lexicon of the individual or sub-culture that creates it, because, quite simply, it is clunky and unfunny. The "this is how me and my friends talk" argument doesn't help. If you and your friends thought "Shiite Muslim" was funny when you were sixteen, that's fine. But no one wants to pay 10 dollars to hear you and your friends say "Shiite Muslim."

And if the dialogue is conceivably realistic--meaning someone, somewhere might conceivably talk like Juno and her friends--then why are they not enchanted with their own wit? Oh, that's right--because it's a sitcom, minus the canned laughter, where sarcasm and wordplay flow like effluent from a leaky septic tank without the slightest hint recognition from any of the characters. Which is fine, if we're calling a spade a spade. But we're not. We're calling this drivel "authentic," which it most clearly is not.