Author Archives: Angela Tung

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Word Soup

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. Today we take a look at some pickup artist lingo, a few Britishisms, blah people, and more.

authorizing

Bailey: “He counters with some authorizing. He makes it seem like the last thing on his mind is hooking up. He just finds her interesting and wants to talk.”

“Till Death Do Us Part,” Castle, January 9, 2012

Authorizing is part of made-up pickup artist lingo constructed for this episode of Castle, and plays on “real” pickup artist lingo. Authorizing may have to do with the idea of being an authority and having power over women by feigning disinterest in a physical relationship.

blah

Ed Schulz: “Blah isn’t the word I heard.”
Rick Santorum: “I don’t want to make blah people’s lives better by giving them somebody else’s money.”

The Ed Show, January 6, 2011

Some claim that Santorum said black people, which he denied: “If you look at it, what I started to say is a word and then sort of changed and it sort of — blah — came out.  And people said I said ‘black.’ I didn’t.” Mark Liberman at Language Log asserted that what Santorum said sounded more like bligh, and that perhaps Santorum “started to say ‘black’ and used the vowel in ‘lives’, as an ordinary sort of anticipatory speech error, perhaps enhanced by a sudden doubt about whether it was a good idea to bring race into the discussion.”

bronemy

Schmidt: “He’s my bronemy. My friemesis.”

“The Story of the 50,” New Girl, January 18, 2012

Bronemey is a blend of bro and enemy, and is the “bro” version of  frenemy – a blend of friend and enemy – “someone who pretends to be your friend, but is really enemy,” or someone with whom one has a love/hate relationship. Friemesis is a blend of friend and nemesis. An older term with a similar meaning is backfriend, “a false or pretended friend; a secret enemy,” which seems to have first appeared in the 15th century and is also slang for hangnail.

bug-hunter

Doc [addressing a group of prostitutes]: “Pickpockets, lushingtons, and bug-hunters will be severely dealt with.”

“God of Chaos,” Hell on Wheels, January 15, 2012

A bug-hunter is “a street thief who specializes in snatching (drunken) men’s jewellery.” Bug was once slang for “breast-pin.” See this list for even more words for thief.

butter job

Esposito: “A butter job, what’s that?”
Bailey: “It’s when you flirt with the mark’s friend.”

“Till Death Do Us Part,” Castle, January 9, 2012

Butter job is another example of pickup artist lingo constructed for this episode of Castle, and perhaps comes from the idea of buttering up the targeted woman’s friend in order to get to the woman.

city, the

Anthony Bourdain: “[Sweetings is] one of the great institutions of what’s called ‘the city,’ London’s financial district.”

“London,” The Layover, January 16, 2012

In addition to the city, some other financial district nicknames include Wall Street (New York), FiDi (San Francisco), and La Defense (Paris).

duress

Emily: “Defense lawyers use the term duress to describe the use of force, coercion, or psychological pressure exerted on a client in the commission of a crime. When duress is applied to the emotionally unstable, the result can be as violent as it is unpredictable.”

“Duress,” Revenge, January 4, 2011

Duress comes from the Latin durus, “hard,” and is related to the word endure.

ex-stalk-tion

Bailey: “Mike’s our buddy. He got involved with this crazy stalker chick. Colette something. So we staged an abduction to scare her off. You call it an ex-stalk-tion.”

“Till Death Do Us Part,” Castle, January 9, 2012

Ex-stalk-tion is a blend of the Latin prefix ex, meaning “out of, from,” stalk, and the Latin noun suffix -ion. It may also be a play on extraction, “the act of taking out.”

faffing

Chris: “I’m sorry, but the Ben Wyatt that I know – I just don’t think he’d be happy sitting here faffing around.”

“The Comeback Kid,” Parks and Recreation, January 12, 2012

To faff is British slang that means “to waste time on an unproductive activity,” and originally meant “to move violently.” According to World Wide Words, faff may have started “as a dialect word in Scotland and Northern England at the end of the eighteenth century, as a description of the wind blowing in puffs or small gusts,” and “may have been imitative of the sound of gusty wind.” Another possibility is that it was an alteration of maffle or faffle, both of which mean “to stammer.”

Special thanks to Fritinancy for pointing this out.

lushington

Doc: “Pickpockets, lushingtons, and bug-hunters will be severely dealt with.”

“God of Chaos,” Hell on Wheels, January 15, 2012

A lushington is a tippler or habitual drinker. The word may came from lush, a drunkard, which may come from “the old German word Loschen, which also means strong beer, or possibly from lush in the Irish traveller argot Shelta, which meant to eat and drink.”

pannenkoek

Anthony Bourdain: “This place supposedly is where the Beastie Boys were inspired to write the lyric ‘When I am in Holland, I eat the pannenkoeken‘ which is a lyric I’ve had tattooed on my inner thigh since the release of Super Disco Breakin’.”

“Amsterdam,” The Layover, January 3, 2012

Pannekoek (pannenkoeken is plural) is a type of large Dutch pancake which can be savory or sweet.

pop-up

Anthony Bourdain: “Pop-up means just what it sounds like: a joint that pops up anywhere it can, for a few hours or days, then moves on.”

“San Francisco,” The Layover, January 9, 2012

Pop-up in this context refers to a pop-up restaurant, a temporary restaurant which often operates “from a private home, former factory or similar and during festivals.”

rice queen

Becky [in voiceover to Mike Chang]: “No, Chang Du, I’m no rice queen.”

“Yes/No,” Glee, January 17, 2012

Rice queen usually refers to “a gay non-Asian man who is mostly attracted to East Asian men,” with rice as a disparaging yet, some may argue, reappropriated reference to East Asian culture and queen as a disparaging yet reappropriated term for a gay man. This instance of rice queen could be considered an example of cultural appropriation, “the adoption of some specific elements of one culture by a different cultural group.”

sexpionage

Beckett: “That’s espionage.”
Castle: “More like sexpionage.”

“Till Death Do Us Part,” Castle, January 9, 2012

Sexpionage is a blend of sex and espionage, and means using sex to commit espionage, “the practice of spying.”

Siegbarste

Nick: “He was big. And he has this rare genetic disorder that deadens the nerves. And abnormally dense bones.”
Eddie: “Siegbarste. Your basic ogre.”

“Game Ogre,” Grimm, January 13, 2012

Siegbarste is German in origin. Sieg translates as “victory” while barste may be a corruption of bersten, “to burst or crack.”

straw man

Nash Castor: “That’s our Democratic straw man.”

“Politically Inept, with Homer Simpson,” The Simpsons, January 8, 2012

A straw man is “a person who is set up as a cover or front for a questionable enterprise.”

tweaky

Josh: “So, there were an unusual amount of tweaky looking vampires scuffling around the doorstep last night.”

“Turn This Mother Out,” Being Human, January 16, 2012

Tweaky means having the attributes of a tweaker, slang for “a person addicted to methamphetamines.” Tweaking describes a tweaker’s behavior, which is often compulsive and repetitive, and is a a type of stereotypy. The origin of this sense of tweaking is unknown, as far as we could find, but may be imitative of twitch, tik, or twinge.  The vampires in this instance are craving blood, and as a result act like tweakers or drug addicts.

yobbery

Anthony Bourdain: “The dark side of British night life: binge drinking, drunken rickshaw tours, general yobbery.”

“London,” The Layover, January 16, 2012

Yobbery refers to behavior like that of a yob, British slang for “a rowdy, aggressive, or violent young man.” Yob is boy spelled backwards (presumably, a yob behaves in the opposite way a proper boy should) and attests to 1859.

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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WotD Perfect Tweet Challenge Roundup

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.

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This Week’s Language Blog Roundup

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.

Last week the American Dialect Society picked its 2011 word of the year, occupy, “verb, noun, and combining form referring to the Occupy protest movement.” Other categories included Most Useful (humblebrag, “expression of false humility”); Most Creative (Mellencamp, “a woman who has aged out of being a ‘cougar’ (after John Cougar Mellencamp)”); and Most Outrageous (assholocracy, “rule by obnoxious multi-millionaires”). Ben Zimmer, chair of the New Words Committee of the American Dialect Society, gives a recap at Visual Thesaurus.

The Economist discussed the gift of learning foreign languages, while Johnson discussed lexical accuracy in politics; the dreaded comma splice; fewer versus less; and Rick Santorum and the word santorum (NSFW), as coined by Dan Savage.

At Language Log, more Santorum shenanigans went on as Mark Liberman considered “blah” people. Mr. Liberman also examined political speech errors; “g-dropping” in songs and life; the origins of the phrase just sayin’; and the “floating discourse adjunct,” kind of thing. Victor Mair explored sauce in Texas and caravanserai on the Silk Road, and Mandarin Chinese in Mainland China versus Taiwan. Julie Sedivy wrote about the loss of speech, while Geoff Pullum discussed the passive voice and the stupidity of commenters.

In other political misspeaking, Jan Freeman posted about Ron Paul’s statement that he’s “nibbling,” as opposed to nipping, at  Mitt Romney’s heels. At Lingua Franca, Lucy Ferriss explored day and month words; Geoff Pullum revisited the singular they; Ben Yagoda peeved on a variety of topics; and Allan Metcalf asserted that efforts to revive and banish words make no difference (don’t tell that to British journalist John Tottenham – awesome!). At Macmillan Dictionary blog, Michael Rundell explained the difference between terminology and jargon, while Stan Carey got into inkhorn terms, and on his own blog engaged in some baby talk.

Fritinancy got hoity-toity and was all about the umlauts. Her word of the week was emoji, “Cartoonish icons used to communicate emotion in email and texting,” which is  “from the Japanese; a blend of ‘e’ (Japanese for ‘picture’) + ‘moji’ (‘letter’).” Word Spy spotted showroom, bustaurant, ineptocracy, and Janopause, “the practice of abstaining from alcohol for the month of January.”

Erin McKean rounded up the interesting words and linguistic trends of 2011, and noticed this week in words, like-jacking, moitié-moitié, resto-mod, and supremes. At The Boston Globe, Erin confronted the horror of ungrammatical song lyrics, and on the Colin McEnroe show talked dictionaries, print and otherwise.

Lynneguist explained the British English phrase just about, and the difference between the American English haste makes waste and the British English more haste, less spend. Kory Stamper described life as a lexicographer while Arnold Zwicky took a look at gastropubs and separated spellings. Sesquiotica considered triolets, ballades, and toques – or is it tuques? The Virtual Linguist told us it was Irish monks who first put spaces between words, and that “Germany has a problem with so-called ‘opium grandpas‘.”

Dialect Blog delved into t-tapping (“‘bitter’ sounds like ‘bidder’”); compared the New England and East Anglia accents; and wondered if there was ever a “veddy British” R. Grammarphobia explained where the word hobnob comes from; Motivated Grammar assured us hashtags aren’t ruining anything; and Grammar Girl told us the origins of the @ symbol and the word OK.

Meanwhile, The New York Times’ crossword puzzle editor Will Shortz was schooled on the true meaning of the word illin’; J. R. R. Tolkien’s chances at a Nobel were dashed by “poor prose”; and Mark Twain ranted about bad writing. We were excited to read this posthumous article from Christopher Hitchens, to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Madeleine L’Engle’s A Wrinkle in Time, and to imagine Daria, Rory Gilmore, and Rupert Giles as lit bloggers.

We learned that robots show randomness in language, that language is hardwired to be positive, and that there are some filthy words we still can’t say on TV. We found out which books were the most metal of 2011; that people crazy about Downton Abbey are probably crazy for books; why authors tweet; and why libraries have that smell.

We loved this dictionary of superstitions (“Finding a hairpin promises making a new friend; losing one is more ominous, suggesting that an enemy is close at hand”); this website that is attempting “to create a multi-layered ‘storyverse’ that links, cross-references and catalogues every mention of pretty much everything in fiction”; these 25 epithets from literature; and this Tokyo bookstore that personally recommends books to its customers. We also loved this Japanese store and its “fuckin’” sale (fuckin’ was a play on the Japanese word fukubukuro, meaning “lucky bags,”) and were saddened that they changed their sign.

Finally, thanks to Word Blog for including us in their 50 Best Blogs for Word Lovers.

That’s it for this week!

 

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WotD Perfect Tweet Challenge Roundup

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.

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Letters and Notes

Letters from my grandfather to his parents

Photo by cynthiacloskey

It’s National Letter Writing Week! Instead of sending that email, direct message, or text, why not set pen to paper, slap a stamp on an envelope, and drop your letter in the mail?

The word letter, meaning “a written or printed communication directed to a person or organization,” comes from the Greek diphtherā, “hide, leather, writing surface.” According to the Online Etymology Dictionary, the Latin plural litteræ meaning “epistle, written documents, literature,” was first attested in the early 13th century, replacing the Old English ærendgewrit, “errand-writing.”

If you’re the formal type, you might want to write an epistle, a letter “used particularly in dignified discourse or in speaking of ancient writings,” and also “one of the letters included as a book in the New Testament” and “any kind of harangue or discourse.” Epistle comes from the Greek epistellein, “to send a message,” which also ultimately give us epistolary, “pertaining to letters or the writing of letters.”

Another kind of formal letter is the brevet, “a letter of authority; a commission,” or “a commission to an officer which promotes him to a higher rank.” The word comes from the Old French brievet, “letter, note, piece of paper; papal indulgence,” which is a diminutive of bref, “letter, note.”

Want to be short and sweet? Write a chit, “a short letter or note; a written message or memorandum; a certificate given to a servant; a pass, or the like.” Chit comes from the Hindi word chitthi, “letter, note.” A billet is “a small paper or note in writing; a short letter or document,” and in French means “document or note” (coming from the Middle Latin bulla, “decree, seal, sealed document”).

In love? Send your paramour a billet-doux, a short love note, which translates from the French as “sweet note.” Have a crush? Send a mash note. According to World Wide Words, mash was “a slang term in the US in the 1870s for an infatuation or crush,” and “could also be a dandy or the object of one’s affection,” or “to make amorous advances to a member of the opposite sex, to flirt or seduce.” The mash note is an extension of this idea and “refers mainly to an expression of attraction or desire from a stranger or acquaintance that is unlikely to be welcome.”

If you need to break up with someone, send a Dear John letter. The ever-trusty World Wide Words tells us that the expression seems “to have been invented by Americans during the Second World War” when “thousands of US servicemen were stationed overseas for long periods,” many finding “that absence didn’t make the heart grow fonder.” Additionally, “John was a common generic name for a man at this period.”

To your object of hatred you might send a poison-pen letter, a kind of anonymous hate mail. The phrase poison-pen letter was popularized in 1913 “by a notorious criminal case in Pennsylvania,” but the term “may date back to 1908.” (By the way, blackmail, “extortion in any mode by means of intimidation,” has nothing to do with letters or the post office. The -mail portion of the word comes from the Middle English male, “rent, tribute,” which comes from the Old English mal, “lawsuit, terms, bargaining, agreement.”)

To thank someone “who has recently provided you with hospitality, usually dinner or an overnight visit,” you might write a bread-and-butter letter, with bread and butter referring “to hospitality in general.” To beg someone for money, you might write, or screeve, a begging letter, known as phishing if done by email. Charles Dickens wrote about the begging-letter writer here.

A green-ink letter, chiefly a British English term, comes from someone “who claims that he is the victim of some injustice, or who composes long and vehement complaints against a person or an organisation.” A collective of such people is referred to as the green-ink brigade. Why green? The origin is disputed. World Wide Words says it may be attested to the late 1990s and the belief by British journalists that people who were particularly eccentric preferred green ink.

A much earlier mention occurs in American astronomer Carl Sagan’s 1973 book, The Cosmic Connection: “There came in the post an eighty-five-page handwritten letter, written in green ball-point ink, from a gentleman in a mental hospital in Ottawa.” A recent mention occurred on an episode of the television show, Homeland. Carrie, a brilliant CIA agent who suffers from mental illness, searches madly for a green pen during a breakdown. “The only thing important now is the green pen,” she says.

A drop letter is “a letter that is mailed and delivered from the same post office,” while a dead letter is “an unclaimed or undelivered letter that after a period of time is destroyed or returned to the sender by the postal service,” or specifically the dead letter office.

For some letter writing advice, you might like Appleton’s Complete Letter Writer: The Useful Letter Writer, or The Complete Letter Writer. For letter writing etiquette, check out Emily Post’s advice on the proper way to write notes and shorter letters and longer letters. Some “letters that no one cares to read” include Letters of Calamity; Letters of Petty Misfortunes; and the Letter of the Capital “I,” “a pompous effusion which strives through pretentiousness to impress its reader with its writer’s wealth, position, ability, or whatever possession or attribute is thought to be rated most highly.” Finally, for inspiration, visit one of our favorite websites, Letters of Note.

[Photo: CC BY 2.0 by cynthiacloskey]

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Wordnik News & Reminders

Happy New Year, everyone! We wanted to give you a roundup of the latest Wordnik news and reminders about some of our fun features and products.

We rang in 2012 with a profile in The New York Times, Wordnik’s Online Dictionary, No Arbiters Please, while our President and CEO, Joe Hyrkin, was interviewed by IdeaMensch. Last month we launched the Wordnik-powered financial dictionary for SmartMoney.com of The Wall Street Journal (check out our blog post for more details).

Wordnik was highlighted in GigaOM’s NoSQL’s great, but bring your A game, while our special all-Glee edition of Word Soup, was featured at WetPaint.

Also, Wordnik is still hiring! Check out our jobs page for open positions and to apply.

To remind you, every weekend Erin McKean pens The Wall Street Journal feature, “The Week in Words,” a field guide to unusual words in that week’s WSJ issue. The latest installment rounds up 2011’s most interesting linguistic trends.

Did you get a Nook over the holidays? If so, you might be interested in their Word of the Day app, powered by Wordnik. And if your word nerd wishlist went unfulfilled, treat yourself to these Pocket Posh Word Power dictionaries.

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Word Soup: Science Fiction

In celebration of the birthdays of Isaac Asimov (designated as National Science Fiction Day) and J. R. R. Tolkien this week, we’re celebrating science fiction words and language all week here at Wordnik. Today’s Word Soup is a special installment of some of our favorite words from and about science fiction television shows.

Warning: some of these quotes may be spoilers for some of you, and, as usual, some words are NSFW.

Slang & Expletives

frak

Ellen Tigh: “You don’t wanna frak with me, Bill. Try to remember that.”
Adama: “Don’t frak with me either, Ellen.”

“Tigh Me Up, Tigh Me Down,” Battlestar Galactic, March 4, 2005

Frak, which replaces expletives such as fuck, shit, and damn, first appeared in the 1978 Battlestar Galactica series as frack. For the “re-imagined” version, frack was revised as frak, since “the producers wanted to make it a four-letter word.” Frak is a play on fuck, and is reminiscent of the intensives, freaking, fricking, and frigging.

Fracking refers to hydraulic fracturing, “a technique in which a mixture of water and sand is forced down an oil well (or similar) in order to create fractures in the oil-bearing rock and thus release more oil.” Fracking was mentioned in “Fracked,” an episode of CSI: Las Vegas, which featured Katee Sackhoff, who portrayed Lt. Kara “Starbuck” Thrace on Battlestar Galactica.

gorram

Mal: “We didn’t pick the cargo.”
Badger: “And I didn’t flash my ass at the gorram law.”

“Serenity,” Firefly, December 20, 2002

Gorram is most likely a corruption of goddamn with what may be a Chinese accent. The show ”takes place in a multi-cultural future, primarily a fusion of Occidental and Chinese cultures,” and as a result, “Mandarin Chinese is a common second language” often used as expletives.

shiny

Jayne [about taking on new passengers]: “Pain in the ass.”
Kaylee: “No, it’s shiny! I like to meet new people. They’ve all got stories.”

“Serenity,” Firefly, December 20, 2002

Shiny in this context means “excellent; remarkable.” Other words that have evolved into slang with a similar meaning include cool, neat, swell, groovy, radical, bitchin, and phat. See this list for more.

skinjob

Tigh: “Before the attack on the Colonies, we didn’t know the skinjobs existed. Turns out there’s another kind of Cylon we didn’t know about, and I’m one of them.”

“Revelations,” Battlestar Galactica, June 13, 2008

Skinjob is a derogatory term for a Humanoid Cylon, “indistinguishable from organic-humans due to their creation through synthetic-biology.” Skinjob pays homage to the film, Blade Runner, which uses skin-job as a derogatory term for replicants, which have similar qualities as Cylons and Humanoid Cylons.

smeg

Rimmer: “Why don’t you smegging well smeg off, you annoying little smeggy smegging smegger!”

“Only the Good,” Red Dwarf, April 5, 1999

Smeg, like frak, replaces other expletives, and was popularized by the British science fiction comedy, Red Dwarf. The word is reminiscent of the word smegma, “a whitish sebaceous secretion that collects between the glans penis and foreskin or in the vulva.” Smegma comes from the Greek word smekhein, “to wash off.”

Enemies & Alternates

Borg

Q: “The Borg is the ultimate user. They’re unlike any threat your Federation has ever faced. They’re not interested in political conquest, wealth or power as you know it. They’re simply interested in your ship, its technology. They’ve identified it as something they can consume.”

“Q Who?” Star Trek: The Next Generation, May 8, 1989

The Borg is “a fictional pseudo-race of cybernetic organisms depicted in the Star Trek universe,” as well as “one who proselytises or assimilates.” The word Borg comes from cyborg, “a human who has certain physiological processes aided or controlled by mechanical or electronic devices.” The word cyborg is a blend of cybernetics, “the theoretical study of communication and control processes in biological, mechanical, and electronic systems,” and organism, “a body exhibiting organization and organic life,” and was coined “in 1960 when Manfred Clynes and Nathan S. Kline used it in an article about the advantages of self-regulating human-machine systems in outer space.”

Cylon

Number Three: “Or would you raise your children with stories of the Cylon, the mechanical slaves who once did your bidding, only to turn against you?”

“Exodus (Part 2),” Battlestar Galactica, October 20, 2006

In the original Battlestar Galactica series, Cylons were not “the mechanical foils” seen in the re-imagined BSG “but an advanced reptilian race who created the robots.” In the re-imagined series, “Cylons were created by humans as cybernetic workers and soldiers.” As for the word’s etymology, cy- comes from cybernetics, while cylon in Latin seems to mean “hollowness of the eyes,” implying the visage of a machine. Derogatory slang for Cylons include bullet-head, chrome job, clanker, and toaster.

Fauxlivia

Walter: “[The password] was a song lyric. And Fauxlivia ruined U2 for all of us.”
Nina: “Fauxlivia?”
Peter: “That’s what Walter’s calling her now. Fauxlivia as in ‘fake Olivia.’”

“Reciprocity,” Fringe, January 28, 2011

Fauxlivia, a blend of faux and Olivia, refers to the alternate universe version of the character, Olivia. Having posed as Olivia, to residents of the primary universe, Fauxlivia is false or fake, ie, not the “real” Olivia. Other faux portmanteaus include fauxhawk, fauxtography, fauxmosexual, fauxhemian, and fauxpology.

reaver

Simon: “What happens if [the reavers] board us?”
Zoe: “If they take the ship, they’ll rape us to death, eat our flesh, and sew our skin to their clothing. And if we’re very very lucky, they’ll do it in that order.”

“Serenity,” Firefly, December 20, 2002

Reavers are “a group of humans in the television series Firefly and the movie Serenity who live on the fringes of civilized space and have become animalistic.” The original meaning of reaver is “one who reaves or robs; a plundering forager; a robber,” and comes from the Old English reafian, “to rob something from someone, plunder, pillage.”

Show Me

Henry Higgins: “I’m gonna need you to Show Me. You know I can’t put this cab into drive without your I.D.”

“Olivia,” Fringe, September 23, 2010

The Show Me is a form of personal identification in the Fringe alternate universe. The phrase show me has various implications. “Show me who you are,” the requester may ask. “This shows me,” the ID holder might say. Show Me is an example of anthimeria, “the use of a word from one word class or part of speech as if it were from another.” Show Me is a verbal phrase used as a noun, turned back into a verb in the quote.

Walternate

Walter: “Walternate found a cure. He found a cure for Peter… and — and it works, Carla. It’s not too late. I can save him.”

“Peter,” Fringe, April 1, 2010

Walternate is a blend of Walter and alternate, and is the alternate universe version of the character Walter.

Fans

Browncoat

Drunk Guy [to Mal]: “Six years [ago] today, the Alliance sent the Browncoats running, pissing in their pants. You know your coat is a kinda brownish color.”
Mal: “It was on sale.”

“The Train Job,” Firefly, September 20, 2002

Browncoats refer to the independence fighters on Firefly (so named for the color of their uniforms) as well as fans of the show. The word is reminiscent of redcoat, Brownshirt, and turncoat.

Dwarfy

“[Norman Lovett] is returning to the role in the current series [Red Dwarf] after an eight-year break, though he has been regularly attending ‘Dwarfy’ conventions in the meantime.”

James Rampton, “Comedy with James Rampton,” The Independent, February 15, 1997

A Dwarfy is a fan of the British science fiction show, Red Dwarf. Dwarfy plays on Trekkie, a fan of the show Star Trek, and may be used as a noun or an adjective.

shipper

“There are a specific sect of ‘Battlestar Galactica’ fans that truly eat [the love storyline] up. They are known. . .as ‘Shippers,’ and if they had their way, Adama and Roslin would be replaced by Victor Newman and Katherine Chancellor.”

Michael Hinman, “Battlestar Galactica’s Young and the Feckless,” Airlock Alpha, February 8, 2007

A shipper is “one involved in shipping (fan fiction based on romantic relationships between characters),” and is short for relationship.

Trekkie

“I am, as I have mentioned before, one of the original Trekkies, who watched the show for the character relationships, the science, and the social commentary (who was it who said science fiction is the modern equivalent of philosophy?), not the fight scenes.”

Kathy Ceceri, “This Trekkie Is Happy,” Wired, May 8, 2009

A Trekkie is a fan of the TV show, Star Trek. The word was coined in 1967 by science fiction editor Arthur W. Saha, and is also known as a Trekker, though some argue Trekkers are truly serious fans while Trekkies are poseurs. A Niner is a fan of the Star Trek spinoff, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.

X-phile

“We X-Files fans–or X-philes, to be annoying–are double sufferers. Maybe even triple sufferers, since we are afflicted not only by history and by our own fantasies but by ‘creator’ Chris Carter’s as well.”

John Cloud, “Cinema: An X-Phile Confesses,” Time, June 22, 1998

The word X-phile means literally “love of X,” where phile comes from the Greek philos, “loving, dear,” and is a pun of file. Other phile words include bibliophile, a lover of books; cinephile, a movie enthusiaist; Anglophile, “one who admires or is friendly to England”; and many more.

Meta

Riker’s beard

“It really was hard to take Jonathan Frakes seriously that first season of TNG, and it wasn’t entirely because his uniform was a bit too tight. He just looked a bit too much like an overgrown boy scout, and the beard really did help a lot.”

Matt Blum, “10 Geeky Swear Words That Don’t Exist (Yet),” Wired, August 31, 2010

Riker’s beard refers to the phenomenom that before Commander Riker, the character played by Jonathan Frakes, grew a beard, the TV show, Star Trek: The Next Generation, was mediocre. After Riker grew his beard, “the show kicked ass.” The opposite of Riker’s beard is jump the shark, referring to the decline of a show after a ludicrous event.

redshirt

“Being a ‘Red Shirt’ on the USS Enterprise is one of the most dangerous jobs in any (imaginary) military. . . .SiteLogic founder Matt Bailey crunched the numbers: 13.7% of Kirk’s crew died during their three-year televised mission. 73% of the deaths were Red Shirts.”

David Axe, “Star Trek “Red Shirts”: the Harsh, Statistical Truth,” Wired, April 11, 2008

A redshirt is “an unimportant character introduced only to be killed in order to underscore the peril to the important characters; an expendable character.”

Scully

Buffy [to Giles]: “I cannot believe that you of all people are trying to Scully me.”

“The Pack,” Buffy the Vampire Slayer, April 7, 1997

Scully refers to Dana Scully, an FBI agent on the TV show, The X-Files. Whereas her partner, Fox Mulder, readily believed in the paranormal, Scully was always skeptical, casting doubt on Mulder’s seemingly incredible theories. To Scully is to cast doubt on a far-fetched belief. Scully is an anthimeria, “the use of a word from one word class or part of speech as if it were from another,” as well as an eponym, “a word or name derived from the name of a person.”

treknobabble

“Immersed in Treknobabble — the pseudo-scientific tongue spoken in the ‘Trek’ universe — he recalled details from long-ago episodes of the spin-offs ‘Star Trek: The Next Generation’ and ‘Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.’”

Warren Kagarise, “Boldly go: Sammamish actor seeks out new civilizations in ‘Star Trek’ homage,” Issaquah Press, August 10, 2010

Treknobabble is a play on technobabble, “technical jargon.” Technobabble – also known as technospeak – is a blend of technology and babble, and originated in the 1980s, “derived from or inspired by psychobabble, the title of a 1977 book by Richard Rosen.”

This list is by no means complete. What are you some of your favorite words from SF TV?

[Photo: CC BY 2.0 by Hey Paul]