Every week, we pose a challenge: using any word of the day from the week, create a perfect tweet, otherwise known as a twoosh. If we like it, your tweet will appear on our blog.
Here are our favorites from last week:
Thanks to everyone for playing! You’ll have another chance this week to perfect your word of the day perfect tweets. To get the word of the day, follow us on Twitter, like us on Facebook, or subscribe via email.
Chances are you’re caught up on the anachronisms of Downton Abbey, between Ben Zimmer’s Visual Thesaurus post, his talk with NPR, his post for Language Log that goes beyond the nitpickery, and Fritnancy’s post on the 1918 anachronism, contact. But what about the words and phrases the show has gotten right?
From obsolete medical terms to nautical sayings to phrases which may be common to Brits but are novel to these American ears, we’ve gathered them here, including a couple of terms that no one on Downton Abbey should be saying unless they own a time machine.
Spoilers may follow.
UPDATE: We corrected aerosyphilis to be erysipelas. Thanks to our readers for the helpful comments.
any port in a storm
Cora: “Is [Edith] really serious about [Sir Anthony]?”
Violet: “Any port in a storm.”
Episode 7, Season 1, November 7, 2010
Any port in a storm is an idiom that means “an unfavourable option which might well be avoided in good times but which nevertheless looks better than the alternatives at the current time.” The first record of the phrase is from 1749.
banns, the
Cora: “To live with him? Unmarried?”
Sybil: “I’ll live with his mother till the banns are read.”
Episode 6, Season 2, October 30, 2011
The banns, often referred to as the banns of marriage (attested from the 1540s) is “the proclamation of intended marriage in order that those who know of any impediment thereto may state it to the proper authorities.” The word comes from the Old English bannan, “to summon, command, proclaim,” and is no longer required for “a valid civil marriage in England, Scotland, or the United States.”
batman
Anna: “He was Lord Grantham’s batman when he was fighting the Boers.”
Episode 1, Season 1, September 26, 2010
A batman is “a British military officer’s orderly,” whose “duty is to take charge of the cooking utensils, etc., of the company.” The word first appeared in 1755, and comes from the late 14th century word for “pack-saddle,” bat. Bat in this sense comes from the Latin bastum, “stout staff,” with the sense of lifting up or offering support.
Blighty
O’Brien [to Thomas]: “What about your Blighty?”
Episode 1, Season 2, September 18, 2011
In this context, Blighty is short for blighty wound, “a minor wound. . .serious enough to take a soldier out of combat.” Blighty originally referred to “Great Britain, Britain, or England, especially as viewed from abroad,” and is a corruption of the Hindi vilāyatī, “foreign.” According to the Oxford Dictionary blog, Blighty was first recorded in print in 1915.
blub
Mary [to Matthew]: “Blub all you like. And then when Lavinia’s here, you can make plans.”
Episode 4, Season 2, October 9, 2011
Blub means to “to cry, whine, or blubber,” and originated in 1894. Presumably blub is short for blubber, which comes from the Middle English bluberen, “to bubble.” Blubber meaning “to cry, to overflow with weeping” is from the 15th century.
canvass
Sybil: “I want to do some canvassing. The by-election’s not far off.”
Episode 6, Season 1, October 31, 2010
To canvass means “to solicit or go about soliciting votes, interest, orders, subscriptions, or the like,” and originated in the 16th century. The word comes from canvas, “a fabric woven in small square meshes” (which comes from the Latin cannabis, “hemp”), with the idea that “to toss in a canvas sheet” can mean “to shake out, examine carefully,” which is perhaps connected with “shaking out” votes.
chivvy
Isobel [to Cora]: “It was [cousin Violet] who drew my attention to the plight of the refugees. I feel very guilty since I chivvied you, and now I’m jumping ship, but I can’t run Downton as well.”
Episode 5, Season 2, October 16, 2011
To chivvy means “to coerce, as by persistent request,” and originated in 1918. The word is an alternative of chevy, “to chase about or hunt from place to place; throw or pitch about; worry.” Chevy comes from chevy chase (not that Chevy Chase), “a running pursuit,” which probably comes from the 15th century The Ballad of Chevy Chase, which tells “the story of a large hunting party upon a parcel of hunting land (or chase) in the Cheviot Hills, hence the term, Chevy Chase.”
dole
Violet [to Mr. Travis]: “You cannot imagine we would allow you to prevent [William’s marriage from] happening in case his widow claimed her dole?”
Episode 4, Season 2, October 9, 2011
Dole is a chiefly British term referring to “the distribution by the government of relief payments to the unemployed,” as well as “a portion of money, food, or other things distributed in charity.” The word comes from Middle English dol, “part, share.” The phrase on the dole, “receiving financial assistance from a governmental agency, such as a welfare agency,” originated in the 1920s.
dressing gong
Cora: “Now I’m going up to the rest. Wake me at the dressing gong.”
Episode 2, Season 1, October 3, 2010
The dressing gong, according to David Durant’s Where Queen Elizabeth Slept and What the Butler Saw, was “an essentially Victorian feature of a large household,” and would be rung “one hour before dinner was to be served,” again “when dinner was served,” earlier for luncheon, “but never for breakfast.”
dropsy
Isobel: “Is the dropsy of the liver or the heart?”
Episode 2, Season 1, October 3, 2010
Dropsy is an obsolete medical term for “a morbid accumulation of watery liquid in any cavity of the body or in the tissues,” now known as edema. The word dropsy comes from the Greek hydrops, with hydro- meaning “water,” and -ops meaning “face.”
drudge
Mr. Bryant: “In the world as it, compare the two futures. The first as my heir, educated, privileged, rich. Able to do what he wants, to marry whom he likes. The second. . .as the nameless offshoot of a drudge.”
Episode 6, Season 2, October 30, 2011
A drudge is “one who toils, especially at servile or mechanical labor; one who labors hard in servile or uninteresting employments; a spiritless toiler.” The word is attested to the late 15th century and may be related to the Old English dreogan, “to work, suffer, endure.”
erysipelas
Isobel [to Mosely]: “Erysipelas is very hard to cure. We should be able to reduce the symptoms but that might be all we can do.”
Episode 4, Season 1, October 17, 2010
Erysipelas is “a disease characterized by a diffuse inflammation of the skin and subcutaneous areolar tissue.” The word comes from the Greek erysipelas, which may come from erythros, “red,” and pella, “skin.” The disease is also known as St. Anthony’s fire, “said to be so called,” according to the Online Etymology Dictionary, “from the tradition that those who sought his intercession recovered from that distemper during a fatal epidemic in 1089.”
fall like ninepins
Robert: “Good heavens, everyone’s falling like ninepins.”
Episode 6, Season 2, October 30, 2011
To fall like ninepins is a British idiom that means “to fall, break or be damaged in large numbers.” Ninepins is a game like bowling played with nine pins, and attested to the 1570s.
fighting fit
Anna: “Mrs. Patmore’s fighting fit again.”
Episode 7, Season 1, November 7, 2010
Fighting fit, which seems to have originated as a military term, means to be “very fit; in the peak of condition.” “As the pressure is brought to bear, there is coming a strain between the fighting-fit who are single and those who are married.” Recruiting at Home, Fielding Star, February 1916
guinea a minute
Carson: “You didn’t know [Mary] when she was a child, Mrs. Hughes. She was a guinea a minute then.”
Episode 6, Season 2, October 30, 2011
Guinea a minute means something or someone that is great fun, and worth a “guinea a minute.” A guinea was “a gold coin issued in England from 1663 to 1813 and worth one pound and one shilling.” “That day made a high festival for her, and, to use her own expressive phrase, ‘was worth a guinea a minute to her.'” Letters of Chauncey Wright, 1878
lead someone down the garden path
Daisy: “I feel I’ve led him up the garden path with all that nonsense.”
Episode 4, Season 2, October 9, 2011
To lead someone down the garden path means “to deceive, hoodwink,” and seems to attest to the early 1920s. This episode takes place in 1918, making this phrase a possible anachronism.
light the blue touchpaper
Violet [to Lavinia who is playing a gramophone]: “I’ll stand well clear when you light the blue touchpaper.”
Episode 6, Season 2, October 30, 2011
The full phrase is light the blue touchpaper and retire immediately or light the blue touchpaper and stand well clear. Touchpaper is “paper steeped in niter so that it catches fire from a spark and burns slowly, used for firing gunpowder and other explosives.”
The phrase is said when “doing something risky,” according to A Dictionary of Catch Phrases by Eric Partridge. Also according to Partridge the phrase didn’t gain popularity till the 1930s when the BBC radio show, Band Waggon, used it as a catchphrase. The episode takes place in 1919, signalling a possible anachronism.
like it or lump it
Robert: “And if his grace doesn’t like it, he can lump it.”
Episode 1, Season 1, September 26, 2010
The phrase like it or lump it means “to accept a situation whether one agrees with it or not.” The phrase attests to the early 1800s.
no names, no pack drill
Matthew: “I suppose [my mother is] driving cousin Cora mad.”
Mary: “No names, no pack drill.”
Episode 2, Season 2, September 25, 2011
According to World Wide Words, no names, no pack drill seems “to have been of First World War origin,” and means “that if nobody is named as being responsible, then nobody can be punished, the point being that in some situation or other it’s wisest not to name the person being discussed.” Pack-drill was “a military punishment in which the offender is compelled to walk up and down for a certain number of hours in full marching order, with arms, ammunition, knapsack, and overcoat,” and originated in the 19th century.
penny dreadful
Daisy [referring to the Titanic]: “All them people, freezing to death in the midnight icy water.”
O’Brien: “Oh, you sound like a penny dreadful.”
Episode 1, Season 1, September 26, 2010
A penny dreadful is “a cheap pulp novel produced in 19th century Britain,” and seems to have originated in 1870. It was also known as a penny horrible, penny awful, penny number, and penny blood.
posh
Branson [to Sybil]: “Flattered is a word that posh people use when they’re about to say no.”
Episode 1, Season 2, September 18, 2011
Posh means “smart and fashionable,” but also “snobbish, materialistic, prejudiced, under the illusion that they are better than everyone else,” especially in Scotland and North England.
The word attests to 1914. The origin is obscure. The Online Etymology Dictionary says there is “no evidence for the common derivation from an acronym of port outward, starboard home, supposedly the shipboard accommodations of wealthy British traveling to India on the P & O Lines (to keep their cabins out of the sun),” and that the word is more likely from the 1890 meaning of posh, “a dandy,” which comes from “thieves’ slang meaning ‘money’ (1830), originally ‘coin of small value, halfpenny,’ possibly from Romany posh ‘half.’”
shipshape and Bristol fashion
Mary: “Carson and I were just making sure that everything was shipshape and Bristol fashion.”
Episode 3, Season 1, October 10, 2010
Shipshape and Bristol fashion means “tidily tied down and secure.” The phrase seems to have started out as two separate phrases, shipshape which came about in the 17th century, and Bristol fashion in the 19th century. Bristol is an old English seaport.
sprat to catch a mackerel
Mrs. Patmore: “He knows this is just the sprat to catch the mackerel.”
Episode 6, Season 2, October 30, 2011
A sprat to catch a mackerel (sometimes throw out a sprat to catch a mackerel) refers to the “sacrifice [of] something of little value in the hope of gaining something better.” A sprat is “a small marine food fish,” while a mackerel is another kind of fish. The phrase dates from the 19th century.
start of the grouse
Violet: “We’ll give her till the start of the grouse.”
Episode 6, Season 1, October 31, 2010
The start of the grouse refers to the start of the grouse hunting season, also known as the Glorious Twelfth, usually used to refer to August 12th, and seems to date back to 1831.
stranger things happen at sea
William: “[My mother] hopes one day that I might be first footman, or even get to be – ”
Mary: “Carson had better watch out.”
William: “Stranger things happen at sea.”
Episode 6, Season 1, October 31, 2010
Stranger things happen at sea is an idiom that refers to a seemingly implausible event or outcome that may in fact be possible. The origin seems unknown, as far as we could find, although we did locate this citation from September 1911: “We’ll go and take a close look. There may be a little mountain of dollars waiting to be picked up yonder. Who knows? Stranger things have happened at sea.”
swag
Cora: “Now a complete unknown has arrived to pocket my money, along with the rest of the swag.”
Episode 1, Season 1, September 26, 2010
Swag here refers to “plundered property; booty; boodle,” and originates from 1839. The word may be Scandinavian in origin.
termagant
Violet: “Poor Dr. Clarkson. What has he done to deserve that termagant?”
Episode 2, Season 1, October 3, 2010
Termagant in this context means “ boisterous, brawling, or turbulent woman; a shrew; a virago; a scold,” and comes from the capitalized word referring to “an imaginary deity, supposed to have been worshiped by the Mohammedans, and introduced into the moralities and other shows, in which he figured as a most violent and turbulent personage.” The origin of the name is unknown, although there is a variety of speculation.
that’s your lot
Mary: “All right. One song, and that’s your lot.”
Episode 3, Season 2, October 2, 2011
That’s your lot means “that’s all you’re going to receive, so don’t expect anymore,” and seems to have originated around 1920. As this episode occurs before 1920, this phrase may be a bit late for the show’s time period.
Tommy
William: “You won’t let a Tommy kiss his sweetheart when he’s about to fight the Hun?”
Episode 1, Season 2, September 18, 2011
Tommy is a “colloquial name for a British soldier during the world wars.” The word originated in 1884 and comes from Thomas Atkins, “the sample name for filling in army forms.” Tommy gun is unrelated and is short for Thompson gun. Hun is a disparaging term for a German, “applied to the German in World War I by their enemies because of stories of atrocities,” likened to the atrocities of the warring ancient tribe of Central Asia.
two a penny
Mary: “Butlers will be two a penny now they’re all back from the war.”
Episode 6, Season 2, October 30, 2011
The phrase two a penny means “very common, cheap.” Also ten a penny. Ten-a-penny is also “a soldiers’ nickname for the pompom gun.”
Uncle Tom Cobley
Sybil: “My answer is that I’m ready to travel, and you’re my ticket, to get away from this house, away from this life – ”
Branson: “Me?”
Sybil: “No, Uncle Tom Cobley.”
Episode 6, Season 2, October 30, 2011
Uncle Tom Cobley “is used in British English as a humorous or whimsical way of saying et al, often to express exasperation at the large number of people in a list.” The name comes from a Devon folk song, Widecombe Fair, published in 1890 by Sabine Baring-Gould in his collection Songs of the West.
weekend
Matthew: “There are plenty of hours in the day. And of course I’ll have the weekend.”
Violet: “What is a weekend?”
Episode 2, Season 1, October 3, 2010
Weekend – previously week-end – attests to the 1630s and was originally a word of north England “referring to the period from Saturday noon to Monday morning.” The word “became general after 1878.”
Anything we missed or got wrong? Let us know!
Every week, we pose a challenge: using any word of the day from the week, create a perfect tweet, otherwise known as a twoosh. If we like it, your tweet will appear on our blog.
Here are our favorites from last week:
Thanks to everyone for playing! You’ll have another chance this week to perfect your word of the day perfect tweets. To get the word of the day, follow us on Twitter, like us on Facebook, or subscribe via email.
![Clark's O. N. T. Spool Cotton [front]](https://c1.staticflickr.com/3/2838/9564246640_a389961bd6.jpg)
What is love? En Vogue sang about it, poets have mused on it, and people look it up in the dictionary. Here’s our attempt to understand what exactly love is.
The word love comes from the Old English lufu, “love, affection, friendliness.” The Greek root for love is philia (see this list for lots of examples) while the Latin root is amare, which gives us words like amorous, paramour, amiable, and more.
Puppy love, which goes back to at least 1834, is “adolescent infatuation,” and was also once known as calf-love, presumably modeled on the overeager, needy behavior of puppies and calves. A crush, first recorded in 1884, is a “temporary infatuation” while a man crush (which seems to have originated around 2005) is when a straight man has “a crush-like but non-sexual feeling of attraction toward and admiration for a man.” A man crush may result in a man date and possibly some bromance.
Limerence is a type of unrequited love. The word was coined by psychology professor Dorothy Tennov who claimed that the word “has no roots whatsoever” and “no etymology whatsoever.” To carry a torch for someone means “to love or to be romantically infatuated with, especially when such feelings are not reciprocated,” and may come from the “the Greek and Roman tradition of a wedding torch.” This idiom gives us torch song, “a song, often sentimental, lamenting an unrequited love,” which seems to have originated in 1927.
Few of us are lucky enough to experience love at first sight, or as the French say, coup de foudre, literally “stroke of lightning.” How about yuanfen, “a relationship by fate or destiny”? Or koi no yokan, “the sense upon first meeting a person that the two of you are going to fall into love”? (Be sure to check out the rest of Big Think’s list for more untranslatable foreign love phrases.)
If you’re a flirt, you’re “one who plays at courtship.” Flirt originally meant “to turn up one’s nose, sneer at” (1550s), then “to rap or flick, as with the fingers” (1560s). By the 1560s, flirt as a noun came to mean “a pert young hussey,” and by 1777 the verb sense came to mean “play at courtship,” which may have been influenced by Old French fleureter, “talk sweet nonsense,” or “to touch a thing in passing.”
If you like to flirt, you also like to mash (check out our blog post on letters and notes for the etymology). Or maybe smirting, a blend of smoking and flirting, is more your thing. Smirting was coined in Ireland after “the introduction of the pub and restaurant smoking ban in January 2004.” There’s also smexting, smoking and texting, a more solitary activity, unless of course you’re engaging in sexting or textual intercourse (in which case you may want to save your cigarette for afterward).
If you prefer a real date, try cyberdating (especially since it’s now apparently the second most common way for couples to meet); speed dating, “an organized event in which prospective romantic partners meet each other through a series of short one-to-one meetings”; hyperdating, “dating many different people over a short period of time”; intellidating, “dating that emphasizes intelligence, particularly by attending lectures, readings, or other cultural events”; or niche dating, “dating people based on a single characteristic, or on a very limited set of characteristics.”
Bad date? Make sure to arrange a rescue call, “a call to a cell phone placed at a prearranged time to give the person being called an excuse to end a date or other social engagement” (not to be confused with a booty call), especially if you end up with a toxic bachelor, “an unmarried man who is selfish, insensitive, and afraid of commitment.”
Or perhaps you’re a quirkyalone, “a person who enjoys being single and so prefers to wait for the right person to come along rather than dating indiscriminately,” or a leather spinster, a woman “who is happily unmarried and has no desire to seek a mate.”
Most of us have heard enough about cougars and MILFs, but how about a manther (a blend of man and panther), “a middle-aged man who seeks sexual or romantic relationships with significantly younger women,” or a Mellencamp, “a woman who has aged out of being a ‘cougar’,” named for singer John Cougar Mellencamp. (In case you were wondering, another, far less-SFW eponym is santorum, named for Rick Santorum, and which we’ll refrain from defining here.)
Hear wedding bells? Men might want to consider a management ring, an engagement ring for men. And ladies? Try not to morph into bridezilla, part bride, part Godzilla, a phrase which seems to have originated in the mid 1990s. But it’s okay if you have an office spouse, “a co-worker with whom one has a very close but nonromantic relationship.”
Whew! Love is complicated.
Happy Valentine’s Day, or if you prefer, happy Galentine’s Day.
Special thanks to Word Spy.
Welcome to this week’s Language Blog Roundup, in which we bring you the highlights from our favorite language blogs and the latest in word news and culture.
Erin McKean started off the week with a look at how the Super Bowl got its name. For Fashion Week, Erin spoke with The Fashion Spot about fashion jargon, and appeared on The Today Show to talk about the language around men’s grooming and fashion (“There’s meggings, which are leggings for men, kind of ill-advised”). Meanwhile, Mark Peters at the OUP Blog explored denim word blends.
This week also marked the 200th birthday of Charles Dickens. Ben Zimmer wrote about how Dickens helped shape the English lexicon; Jonathan Green discussed Dickens and slang; Letters of Note gave us a few lovely letters from the prolific author; and Time Out New York listed eight Dickensian things you might not know.
In politics, John McWhorter spoke with NPR about why bilingualism is considered a political liability, and Johnson examined the claim that President Obama’s State of the Union address was too simplistic.
At Language Log, Geoff Pullum discussed some faulty noun choices while Mark Liberman assessed the state of the phrase each other. Victor Mair examined the effect of the retroflex final -r on allegro, or abbreviated, Mandarin; the annals of Chinglish in airports; mistaken mango (or is it bango?); and a dog of a insult.
Ben Zimmer explored the Boston accent, while Dialect Blog considered the Canadian accent, constructed dialects, and nasal vowels. Meanwhile, the Texas twang may be disappearing. In British versus American English, Lynneguist parsed the AmE and BrE differences of the word graft while BBC listed five American expressions the British don’t understand (in that case, bite me).
At Macmillan Dictionary Blog, Orin Hargraves and Stan Carey had some fun with new words, while Michael Rundell explained how words get into the dictionary. On his own blog, Mr. Carey told us about another nuance of the word till and that we might could dig some multiple modals. Kory Stamper deliberated on irregardless and the gray areas of English, while Jan Freeman considered bring versus take.
Fritinancy posted about some slutty – in a good way – brand names, and in words of the week, cited skijoring, “cross-country skiing with the assistance of dogs,” and bear claw, “a large sweet pastry shaped like a bear’s paw.” Erin McKean noticed Xoloitzcuintli, the national dog of Mexico; flexitarians, vegetarians who sometimes eat meat; kaiseki, an exquisite multi-course Japanese meal; and socialbots, “sophisticated Twitter bots.”
The Word Spy spotted bashtag, “the use of a corporation’s Twitter hashtag to bash the company’s products”; cyberflaneur, “a person who surfs the web with no purpose beyond curiosity and inquisitiveness”; and slacklining, “a sport that involves walking or balancing on a slack nylon webbing suspended between two points,” as demonstrated by “that guy in a toga bouncing crazily on a rope next to Madonna” during Sunday’s Super Bowl halftime show.
The Virtual Linguist discussed bus drivers banned from calling passengers “babe”; the origins of the word hoopla; and the differences between ought, nought, and aught. Arnold Zwicky piled on some noun pile examples, while Arrant Pedantry considered comprised of fail. Seqsuiotica explored the word sketchy; some noisome usage; and a wordy realm. Lists of Note listed nonsense words from Roald Dahl, names for a new car from poet Marianne Moore (Ford went with their own idea, Edsel), and Thomas Edison’s possible names for the phonograph (we’re partial to glottophone).
We learned about pearl clutching; the misuse of literally; and the stories behind publishers’ animal logos. We found out why words with multiple meanings make language more efficient, and that African language clicks are also common in English. We agreed with Forbes that business jargon is pretty annoying, learned a thing or two about drug slang, and are trying to work NSA lingo into our everyday conversation (“Hey desk rats, no slipping and sliding!”).
We thought we might be suffering from Hogwarts headache; have experienced a few of these laws named for writers (our favorite: “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic”); and hoped that Etymology-Man would come to our rescue if we ever ran into word trouble. Finally, we wanted to book an around-the-world flight to visit these incredible bookstores, and agree there are some things Calvin and Hobbes have said better than anyone.
That’s it for this week!
Welcome to another installment of Word Soup!
While the television show The Soup brings you “the strange, obscure and totally unbelievable moments in pop culture, celebrity news and reality TV,” Word Soup brings you those strange, obscure, unbelievable (and sometimes NSFW) words from talk shows, sitcoms, dramas, and just about anything else on TV.
break bad
Fogle: “If I ever break bad, I will keep that in mind.”
“Harlan Roulette,” Justified, January 31, 2012
Break bad is an American Southern colloquialism that means “to turn toward a life of crime or immoral activity,” as well as, according to The New Partridge Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English by Tom Dalzell & Eric Partridge, “to act in a threatening, menacing manner.” Breaking Bad is a popular television show about a chemistry teacher who becomes a violent drug dealer.
cam-pleasure
Bobby Newport: “I don’t know why they call it a campaign, because up until now it’s been a cam-pleasure.”
“Campaign Ad,” Parks and Recreation, January 19, 2012
Cam-pleasure is a blend of cam from campaign and pleasure. Campaign comes from the Latin campania, “level country,” and originally meant “the operations of an army during one season, or in a definite enterprise.” Pleasure plays on –paign of campaign, a pun for pain, or the opposite of pleasure.
Thanks to Fritinancy for pointing this out.
dick-fu
Jon Stewart: “Romney has no idea who he’s dealing with. He can’t be a dick to Gingrich. He’s a master of dick-fu.”
The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, January 24, 2012
Dick-fu is a blend of dick and kung fu. One well-versed in dick-fu is awesome at being a dick, or “a person, especially a man, regarded as mean or contemptible.”
Fae
Bo: “Now for the million dollar question: What kind of Fae am I?”
“It’s a Fae, Fae, Fae, Fae World,” Lost Girl, September 12, 2010
Faes are mythical creatures that co-exist with humans. Some types of Fae include succubi, werewolves, Furies, and dullahans. The word Fae comes from faerie, an archaic spelling of fairy, which comes from the Latin fata, “the Fates,” which are “supernatural beings who controlled the destiny of men and of the gods.”
Fuchsbau
Eddie [to Nick]: “By the way, he’s Fuchsbau. So count your fingers after you shake hands.”
“Organ Grinder,” Grimm, February 3, 2012
A Fuchsbau is a fox-like creature that can assume human form. Fuchsbau translates from the German as “fox’s den.”
gadje
Timo: “I’m beginning to think what they say about you is true. That you’re only half-Romani. Your father wasn’t gypsy. Some people say that makes you gadje.”
“A Cinderella Story,” The Finder, January 26, 2012
A gadje or gadjo is “used as a disparaging term for one who is not Gypsy,” or Romani, “a nomadic people, with origins in India,” as well as the name of their language. Gadje is Romani in origin and may come from “the proto-Romani word for ‘peasant’ and has the same root as the Romani word ‘gav’ (a village).” The Romani ancestors were “nomadic musicians and craftspeople” and “did not live in villages.”
Galentine’s Day
Leslie: “February 14th, Valentine’s Day, is about romance. But February 13th, Galentine’s Day, is about celebrating lady friends.”
“Operation Ann,” Parks and Recreation, February 2, 2012
Galentine’s Day is a blend of gal (an alteration of girl) and Valentine’s Day (which is named for Valentinus, “the name of two early Italian saints”), and is a faux gender-centric holiday. See also Dudesgiving.
gallenblase
Eddie: “Maybe a little gallenblase. It’s fresh, isn’t it?”
“Organ Grinder,” Grimm, February 3, 2012
Gallenblase is German for gall bladder, and in this context refers to human gall bladder which non-human creatures use as an aphrodisiac.
Geier
Nick [reading]: “Geiers have an innate ability to move through trees, staying above their victims who walk beneath them, unaware. Geiers are the most vile of all. They harvest human organs while their victims are still alive, seeming to take pleasure in the savage pain they cause.”
“Organ Grinder,” Grimm, February 3, 2012
Geier translates from the German as “vulture.” While Geiers roost in trees much like vultures, they prey on the living while vultures primarily feed on carrion, “the dead and putrefying body or flesh of animals.”
get one’s ticket punched
Billy Gardell: “Twenty-two years on the road, and twenty-five with that three you gotta start and suck for three years. And then I got my ticket punched last year.”
Andy Richter: “Usually ‘ticket punched’ means you got murdered.”
Conan O’Brien: “Or success in the industry.”
The Conan O’Brien Show, January 20, 2012
To punch someone’s ticket means “to kill someone,” and is presumably based on the idea of a train conductor punching one’s ticket so that it cannot be used again. Thus, to get one’s ticket punched means to be killed. To punch someone’s ticket also means “to have sex with someone.”
go all Daniel Larusso
Santana: “You may look like the villain out of a cheesy high school movie, but you should know I am prepared to go all Daniel Larusso on your ass.”
“Michael,” Glee, January 31, 2012
Daniel Larusso refers to titular character in the film, The Karate Kid, in which a bullied teen learns martial arts and defeats the school villain. This is yet another instance of anthimeria, “the use of a word from one word class or part of speech as if it were from another,” especially “the use of a noun as if it were a verb.” See Krav Maga: “[Dr. Magnus] and her friend went all Krav Maga on my men.”
Lausenschlange
Nick [reading]: “After two days of waiting in Vienna, I confronted the Lausenschlange in a dark alley. . . .I sliced open his belly exposing the horrid contents of the missing children.”
“Of Mouse and Man,” Grimm, January 20, 2012
The Lausenschlange is a predatory snake-like creature that can take on human form. The word seems to come from the German laus, “louse, and schlange, “snake.” Snake is also slang for “a treacherous person.” The Lausenschlange in this episode is an attorney.
Mausherz
Eddie: “Let me tell you, what you don’t want to do is a leave a Lausenschlange alone with a Maushertz. That’s a recipe for dessert.”
“Of Mouse and Man,” Grimm, January 20, 2012
The Mausherz is a timid mouse-like creature that can take on human form, and when threatened, scurries to its “safe place.” Mausherz translates from the German as “mouse heart.” To be mousy means to be “quiet; timid; shy.” To be lion-hearted means to be “brave and magnanimous.”
nooner
Liz: “Now I’m heading home for a nooner, which is what I call having pancakes for lunch.”
“Idiots Are People Two,” 30 Rock, January 19, 2012
A nooner, according to Jonathan Cassell’s Dictionary of Slang, originally referred to “a midday alcoholic drink,” and in the 1970s came to mean “sexual intercourse, often adulterous, enjoyed at lunchtime.” Both meanings imply something illicit and forbidden, which to Liz means having a breakfast food for lunch.
progressive
Patient [to House]: “Sheldon’s a progressive. . .Progressives are reenactors who strive for complete authenticity. They never drop character while in uniform.”
“Runaways,” House, January 31, 2012
A progressive is a hard-core Civil War reenactor, who tries “to live, as much as possible, as someone of the 1860s might have.” The word progressive may come from the idea that these reenactors are always trying to progress “in their knowledge and other aspects of the mid-19th century.” The opposite of a progressive is a farb, which may come from the German word Farbe, “color,” with the idea that “inauthentic reenactors were over-colorful compared with the dull blues, greys or browns of the real Civil War uniforms.”
rochambeau
Beckett [to Castle]: “No rochambeau?”
Castle: “I think that would put you at an unfair advantage. I’m pretty good at it.”
“An Embarrassment of Bitches,” Castle, January 24, 2012
Rochambeau, also spelled roshambo, refers to the game Rock Paper Scissors. The name seems to come from a French count.
see the elephant
Civil War reenacter: “We swore that we would see the elephant together.”
“Runaways,” House, January 31, 2012
To see the elephant means to “be acquainted with life, gain knowledge by experience” and is an American colloquialism from 1835. The origin is obscure. One possibility comes from the idea that for “most Americans, the only chance to see exotic animals [like an elephant] was by” traveling circuses or menageries.
shucking
Fury: “I didn’t even know he was shucking around.”
Bo: “Shucking?”
Fury: “Having sex with a human.”
“Faetal Attraction,” Lost Girl, October 3, 2010
Shucking, like frak, is a constructed expletive, or a made-up curse word. The word shucking echoes the word fucking, but may also play on the idea of shucking an oyster or clam, implying that, to a Fae, a human is the equivalent of an invertebrate. To shuck also means “to cast off,” and as a noun, “something worthless.”
See our special all science fiction TV Word Soup for even more constructed expletives and slang.
soon-to-have
Governor Mitch Daniels: “We do not accept that ours will ever be a nation of haves and have-nots. We must always be a nation of haves and soon-to-haves.”
John Hodgman: “We have-nows are creating an exclusive world of luxury and privilege for the soon-to-haves to have. . .soon.”
The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, February 2, 2012
The haves refer to “the wealthy or privileged,” while the have nots refer to “the poor or underprivileged.” According to the Online Etymology Dictionary, the earliest citation seems to be from 1742 in a translation of Don Quixote: “There are but two families in the world, as my grandmother used to say; ‘the Have’s and the Have-not’s,’ and she stuck to the former.”
The soon-to-have idea implies that it’s only a matter of time for the very poor to become wealthy or privileged, of which Jon Stewart says, “This soon-to-haves idea that 100% of the people will get to be in the 1% is mathematically impossible.”
stalkerazzi
Castle: “He was outside Kay’s place with the rest of the paparazzi.”
Esposito: “The guy’s a full-on stalkerazzi. Harrassment, tresspassing, even B&E.”
“An Embarrassment of Bitches,” Castle, January 24, 2012
Stalkerazzi is a blend of stalker and paparazzi, which is plural for paparazzo, “a freelance photographer who sells photographs of celebrities to the media, especially one who pursues celebrities and attempts to obtain candid photographs.” Stalk comes from the Old English –stealcian, “to move stealthily,” while paparazzo is named for Signor Paparazzo, a freelance photographer in in La Dolce Vita, a film by Federico Fellini.
subordi-friend
Criss: “I don’t understand your relationship with Liz.”
Jack: “She’s my subordi-friend.”
“Idiots Are People Three,” 30 Rock, January 26, 2012
Subordi-friend is a blend of subordinate and friend. Other faux-friend words include frenemy, backfriend, fremesis, and bronemy.
wheelhouse
Jenna: “Getting paid to help a boy become a man – it’s kinda my wheelhouse.”
“Today You Are a Man,” 30 Rock, February 2, 2012
Wheelhouse in this context is baseball slang for “a hitter’s power zone.” According to the Word Detective, this sense of the word has been in use since 1950s, and most likely comes from “the locomotive turntable ‘wheelhouse’ (often called a ’roundhouse’),” which likens “the awesome swing of the rail yard turntable to the batter’s powerful swing,” as well as “that sweeping side-arm pitches have been known as ’roundhouse’ pitches since about 1910.” See also Fritnancy’s post.
That’s it for this week! Remember, if you see any Word Soup-worthy words, let us know on Twitter with the hashtag #wordsoup. Your word and Twitter handle might appear right here!
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