Welcome to Word Buzz Wednesday, your go-to place for the most interesting words of the week. The latest: ante-dating a fashion term, an unfunny parody, goat love.

capsule wardrobe

“In 1985, Donna Karan launched a collection centered on what she called her seven easy pieces. It offered working women a stylish, flattering capsule wardrobe that could be simply mixed and matched for a variety of looks—and a solution to the perennial problem of what to wear to the office.”

Marc Bain, “Why it’s so hard for women to figure out what to wear to work in 2017,” Quartz, June 11, 2017

While Business Insider says London boutique owner Susie Faux coined the term capsule wardrobe in the 1970s, there are several earlier citations. The earliest we found is from 1947, but it’s a partial citation and difficult to confirm. The earliest confirmed citation we found is from a book first published in 1956, What Shall I Wear?: The What, Where, When, and how Much of Fashion by Claire McCardell.

spoofing

“You could call it a new blend of telemarketing call, and it’s becoming harder for us to filter, thanks to what’s known as ‘spoofing.’”

Meredith Anderson, “Cracking down on unwanted calls,” WRDW-TV, June 15, 2017

Spoofing, says WRDW-TV, refers to “when telemarketers use sneaky software to create a fake caller ID from a local number so you think you are getting a real call from a local number.” Spoofing can also involve fake email addresses and URLs, says Investopedia.

The word spoof meaning hoax or deception originated around 1889 from spouf, a game invented by British comedian Arthur Roberts. Spoof came to mean to parody or satirize around 1914.

cyber-CANOE

“At the University of Hawaii at Manoa, they have what’s called a cyber-canoe — no, it’s not a virtual boat. It uses ultra-high resolution screens that are seamless light emitting diode displays — LED screens.”

Karin Heineman, “3-D Wall of Virtual Reality,” Inside Science, June 16, 2017

CANOE of cyber-CANOE stands for “cyber-enabled collaboration, analysis, navigation, and observation environment,” and is “a hybrid reality visualization environment allowing you to look at large-scale data in resolutions that we couldn’t achieve previously.”

Pinoy pood

“They come stuffed in red Chinese takeout bags with ‘Chinese food’ crossed out and rewritten as ‘Pinoy pood’ — joking slang for ‘Filipino food.’”

Ligaya Mishan, “In Tama’s No-Frills Space, the Filipino Food Is Anything But,” The New York Times, June 15, 2017

Pinoy is an informal way of saying “Filipino” and seems to come from –pino of Filipino and the suffix –y. As for where pood comes from, we’re really not sure. If we had to wager a guess, perhaps the p- of pagkain, the Tagalog word for “food,” and the –ood of “food.” While we may not know were pood comes from, we do know we like this parody.

rush-grumble

“This is what’s called the ‘rush-grumble.’ The noises sound like blubbering, mewing, snuffling, clucking, almost like a dog squeaky toy that’s seen better days.”

Andrew Amelinckx, “Goat Sex: Everything You Wanted to Know But Were Afraid to Ask,” Modern Farmer, June 16, 2017

The rush-grumble is an all-in-one caprine mating call and dance. Modern Farmer says the buck runs next to the female, “nuzzling her side and rear with his tongue out and his front legs and ears jutting forward, all while hooting and hollering like a country boy at a monster truck rally.” And they say goat-romance is dead.

[Photo: “Toby and Clarissa (2)” by The Case Farm, CC BY 2.0]

“O the Roast Beef of Old England (‘The Gate of Calais’)” by William Hogarth

Welcome to Word Buzz Wednesday, your go-to place for the most interesting words of the week. The latest: an undecided government, a gastronomical insult, a drug is a drug is a drug is a drug.

hung parliament

“In the case of a hung parliament, the leader of the party with the most seats is given the opportunity to try to form a government.”

Rajeev Syal and Alan Travis, “What is a hung parliament and what happens now?” The Guardian, June 9, 2017

In the United Kingdom, says The Guardian, to gain a majority and the right to form the next government, a party must win 326 of 650 seats in the House of Commons. The Conservatives, the party of current Prime Minister Theresa May, won “only 318 seats, eight short of that magic number 326, which delivers an overall majority and the keys to Downing Street.” The result? A hung parliament.

The term hung parliament comes from hung jury, a jury unable to reach a verdict. That phrase originated around 1838 while hung parliament is from the early 1970s.

les Rosbifs

“The historical French slang for the British, les Rosbifs, references our love of a good roast. I’m glad that they never got around to calling us Yorkshire puddings.”

Richard Vines, “Where to Get the Best Roast Beef,” Bloomberg, June 12, 2017

According to the BBC, the moniker Rosbifs became associated with the English “as far as the French were concerned in the 18th Century, simply because it was a very popular way of cooking,” and was the title of a popular patriotic song, “The Roast Beef of England.”

ear hustle

“‘Ear Hustle’ — the phrase is slang for eavesdropping — is a collaboration between Earlonne Woods and Antwan Williams, both prisoners at San Quentin, and Nigel Poor, a Bay Area visual artist who teaches photography classes at the prison.”

Beth Schwartzapfel, “Meet the Creators of the New Podcast From Inside San Quentin Prison,” The Marshall Project, June 12, 2017

According to Cassell’s Dictionary of Slang, the term ear hustle originated in the 1990s as prison slang. By extension, an ear hustler is someone who gossips or eavesdrops. According to Street Talk: Da Official Guide to Hip-Hop & Urban Slanguage, ear hustling refers specifically to overhearing false information and is also known as burglarizing a conversation.

coffin cubicle

“These small, wooden boxes of 15 sq ft, are known as ‘coffin cubicles.’”

Benny Lam, “Boxed in: life inside the ‘coffin cubicles’ of Hong Kong – in pictures,” The Guardian, June 7, 2017

Coffin cubicles refer to impossibly small subdivided apartments in Hong Kong, big enough for one narrow bed and sealed all around with wooden planks. An 400 square foot apartment  “can be subdivided to accommodate nearly 20 double-decker sealed bed spaces,” says The Guardian.

devil’s dandruff

“Though, personally, my favorite DEA-published slang term for cocaine would have to be ‘devil’s dandruff.’”

Kate Ryan, “The DEA Has The Best Slang Terms For All The Drugs,” GOOD, June 12, 2017

Other Drug Enforcement Administration slang terms for narcotics include west coast turnarounds for amphetamines, famous dimes for crack, Beyonce for heroin, Hawaiian sunshine for LSD, and Alice B. Toklas for marijuana.

Welcome to Word Buzz Wednesday, your go-to place for the most interesting words of the week. The latest: a winning word, a hangover non-cure, an intense study of nature.

marocain

“Ananya Vinay from Fresno correctly spelled the word marocain – a type of dress fabric – to defeat Rohan Rajeev, 14, from Oklahoma.”

“Ananya Vinay, 12, wins US spelling bee with ‘marocain’,” BBC, June 2, 2017

Marocain is a dress crepe “similar to Canton crepe.” What’s Canton crepe? It’s a soft silk or rayon fabric “with a finely crinkled texture, similar to but heavier than crêpe de Chine.” What’s crêpe de Chine?  A thin, usually silk fabric “used to make dresses or blouses.”

The word marocain comes from the French word for “Moroccan,” according to the BBC.

banana bag

“This year, you can go into a fully qualified medical tent and buy yourself what’s known as a banana bag – the ultimate hangover cure in IV form – and have your feet rubbed while you ingest it.”

Elisa Bray, “Secret Garden Party: Why a pioneering festival wants to change the format,” The Independent, June 6, 2017

A banana bag — named for its yellow contents — is an IV bag commonly given to “patients at risk for alcohol withdrawal symptoms or those who present to the emergency department (ED) acutely intoxicated,” says Academic Life in Emergency Medicine.

One of the rationales behind this is “the administration of fluids is conventionally believed to help speed up sobriety.” However, studies have shown “there’s no evidence that IV fluids expedite sobriety in patients with acute alcohol intoxication.” Presumably, this means banana bags won’t be much help with curing or preventing hangovers either.

Barnes dance

“The District Department of Transportation says the intersection of 14th and Irving Streets Northwest will soon be the site of what’s called a ‘Barnes dance’ crossing.”

John Domen, “Northwest DC intersection getting a ‘Barnes dance’ makeover,” WTOP, June 4, 2017

The Barnes dance, also called a scramble or pedestrian scramble, “is an intersection where car traffic halts for a bit so pedestrians can cross in all directions — including diagonally,” says CityLab. It’s named for traffic engineer Henry Barnes. While he didn’t invent the crossing, he did popularize it during his time as street commissioner in Denver.

The “dance” part of the phrase is said to come from a reporter who said the crossings “made the people so happy they’re dancing in the streets.” It’s also obviously a play on barn dance, a social event with music and dancing, often taking place in a barn.

charrette

“The event on Saturday was what’s known as a ‘design charrette.’ Organizers say they plan to hold more in the future, and to invite people from the neighborhoods near the Innerbelt.”

Kabir Bhatia, “Planners Try to Figure Out What Comes Next After a Highway Becomes Open Space,” WKSU, June 5, 2017

A charrette is “a period of intense work, especially group work, undertaken to meet a deadline.” It seems to have originally referred to architectural students but now may apply to any type of work. The word comes from a design term, en charrette, French for “on the cart,” used to describe the frantic period before a deadline and originating from a time when drawings were transported by cart.

bioblitz

“Howard and other naturalists surveyed Rock Run on Saturday as part of what’s called a ‘bioblitz’ to find rare, threatened and endangered native species to make a case to the state that the upper watershed of Shawnee State Forest should be saved from logging.”

Megan Henry, “Naturalists hold ‘bioblitz’ to save section of Shawnee State Forest from logging,” The Columbus Dispatch, June 4, 2017

A bioblitz, also BioBlitz, is an “intense period of biological recording within a specific area,” usually over 24 hours and involving both “experts and amateurs taking an inventory of all the living organisms within an area.”

A blitz can refer to “heavy aerial bombardment”; “an intense campaign”; and in football, a “sudden charge upon the quarterback by one or more of the linebackers or defensive backs when the ball is snapped.” The word first appeared in English in 1940, says the Online Etymology Dictionary, as a shortening of blitzkrieg, a German word meaning “rapid attack” and translating literally as “lightning war.”

Welcome to Word Buzz Wednesday, your go-to place for the most interesting words of the week. The latest: side struck by lightning; an unusual second toe; feeling icky about technology.

side splash

“Justin believes that he experienced what’s called a side flash or side splash, in which the lightning ‘splashes’ from something that has been struck—such as a tree or telephone pole—hopscotching to a nearby object or person.”

Charlotte Huff, “What It’s Like to Be Struck by Lightning,” The Atlantic, May 25, 2017

According to U.S. meteorologist Ron Holle, direct lightning strikes “are surprisingly rare,” and “responsible for no more than 3 to 5 percent of injuries.” Side splashes make up “20 to 30 percent of injuries and fatalities” while “by far the most common cause of injury is ground current, in which the electricity courses along the earth’s surface.”

silk

“Pupil barristers, as trainees are known, start there at £65,000 per year, and the top silks each make several million pounds.”

Simon Akam, “The Exquisitely English (and Amazingly Lucrative) World of London Clerks,” Bloomberg, May 23, 2017

Silk is the nickname given to “barristers who’ve achieved the rank of Queen’s Counsel,” says Bloomberg, and comes from “the plush material used to make their robes.” The Oxford English Dictionary’s earliest recorded usage is from 1821: “Our solicitor has heard with due attention the speeches delivered from learned silk.”

postural sway

“‘Most of us aren’t aware that we’re moving around all the time,’ says Lena Ting of Emory University, who measures what’s called postural sway in standing people as well as in animals.”

Susan Milius, “Here’s how flamingos balance on one skinny leg,” Business Insider, May 26, 2017

Postural sway refers to horizontal movement around one’s center of gravity. Simply “keeping the body vertical,” says Business Insider, requires “constant sensing and muscular correction for wavering.”

Greek foot

“Today the toe—and the foot it belongs to—is often called a ‘Greek foot’ by art historians and podiatrists.”

Melissa Banigan, “Why the Venus de Milo Has Extra-Long Second Toes,” Atlas Obscura, May 23, 2017

Greek foot refers to having a second toe that’s longer than the first, says Atlas Obscura, so-called because of its frequent depiction in ancient Greek sculptures. In the early 20th century, Dudley Morton, an American orthopedic surgeon, christened the phenomenon after himself, calling it Morton’s toe. Fifteen to 20 percent of the general population has it, and it may cause bunions, hammertoes, and chronic pain.

yuck factor

“He couldn’t face the idea of the operation. It devastated the family. That shows the strength of the yuck factor.”

Anonymous, “Why I donated one of my kidneys to a stranger,” The Guardian, May 20, 2017

The yuck factor refers to an instinctive negative response against new technology and was coined by bioethicist Arthur Caplan, according to Environmental Health Perspectives. For example, the yuck factor might deter people from using recycled sewage as their tap water or from donating a kidney, as discussed in The Guardian article. The yuck factor is also known as the wisdom of repugnance or appeal to disgust.

Welcome to Word Buzz Wednesday, your go-to place for the most interesting words of the week. The latest: the Danish law of “average”; how horoscopes pull a fast one; becoming “plantainized.”

Jante

“The character of Denmark has been consistent in its exemplification of Jante even though it’s never named as such.”

Cole Seidner, “These 10 Rules Are How Denmark Won ‘World’s Happiest Country’ — Three Times,” Big Think, April 4, 2017

Like the cozy hygge, Jante is a Danish untranslatable and thought to be the reason Denmark keeps getting picked as the world’s happiest country. The law of Jante, says Quartz, is a code of conduct which suggests “Danes are happy because they aspire to be average.” Jante was originally the fictionalized town in a satirical novel which the author wrote “to skewer the people of the small town and region where he grew up.”

Why would such a law make you happy? It’s all about expectations. Quartz cites a therapist who says that if you expect a “very average life,” you’re more likely to be content “when life hands you average things.” And if you get something “above and beyond average,” you’ll probably be “pleasantly surprised” and “pretty darn happy.”

tago nang tago

“Lola’s legal status became what Filipinos call tago nang tago, or TNT — ‘on the run.’”

Alex Tizon, “My Family’s Slave,” The Atlantic, June 2017

Other Tagalog terms in Alex Tizon’s moving yet troubling piece include utusan, “people who take commands”; katulong, “helper”; and kasambahay, “domestic.”

Forer effect

“It’s hard to know whether I found them to be true — I am charming, TYSM, but am I irresponsible?! — or whether I’d fallen victim to the Forer effect.”

Haley Nahman, “Does Your Birth Order Affect Your Personality?” Man Repeller, May 12, 2017

The Forer effect, also known as the Barnum effect, is a psychological phenomenon in which people tend to agree with “vague descriptions about themselves without realizing they could apply to basically everyone and their cousin,” as How Stuff Works puts it. It’s named for Bertram Forer, a 20th-century American psychologist.

thunder god vine

“Now scientists have figured out how the thunder god vine works to prevent pregnancy.”

Katherine Ellen Foley, “A new study has confirmed the science behind an ancient form of birth control,” Quartz, May 18, 2017

The thunder god vine is known more formally as Tripterygium wilfordii, says Quartz. Researchers at University of California, Berkeley have figured out how a compound in the plant prevents sperm from fertilizing the egg, which “could lead to an alternative to the hormonal birth control pill.”

aplatanada

“Recently, I spent more than a month in this cinematic metropolis, getting properly aplatanada (slang for ‘plantainized,’ meaning Cubanized).”

Anya von Bremzen, “Where to Eat, Stay and Shop in Havana,” Food & Wine, May 22, 2017

Plantains are often equated with Cuban cooking — hence the slang term aplatanada, literally “plantainized,” to mean becoming Cuban — although “the fruit probably originated in India and landed in the Caribbean via the Spanish settlers,” says Fine Cooking.

Welcome to Word Buzz Wednesday, your go-to place for the most interesting words of the week. The latest: war of the words, the French edition; another Frankenstein food; and a bouncy mouthfeel.

poudre de perlimpinpin

“Macron used this colourful phrase, meaning ‘fairy dust’, to refer to Le Pen’s promises.”

“The new French words we learned thanks to Macron and Le Pen’s verbal joust,” The Local, May 4, 2017

Poudre de perlimpinpin is just one of several interesting French words used during the presidential debate between Emmanuel Macron and Marine Le Pen. It “can also mean star dust or snake oil,” says The Local. Other English lying, cheating, and stealing words include smoke and mirrors, chicanery, and subterfuge.

crotilla

“Based on the response to Crotilla so far, which has ranged from bewilderment to contempt, the product isn’t on its way to living up to the Cronut’s legacy.”

Michele Debczak, “Walmart Unveils the ‘Crotilla,’ a Tortilla and Croissant Hybrid,” Mental Floss, April 25, 2017

This latest culinary monstrosity (only to be rivaled by the frork, which may or may not be a joke) is an unnecessary cross between a croissant and a tortilla.

Q

“I grew to seek out Q like a favored friend, pining for the texture itself rather than looking to satisfy flavor expectations.”

Laura Russell, “The Curious Case of Q,” Roads and Kingdoms, May 2017

Q is a “springy, chewy” kind of mouthfeel — think mochi, fish cakes, shrimp dumplings (or har gow), and tapioca pearls, says Roads and Kingdoms. The term is also known as QQ and tan ya, which translates as “rebound teeth,” and may come from the Taiwanese Hokkien k’iu.

clicker

“Spaceplan is what’s known as an idle game, or a clicker. They’re the video game equivalent of background noise.”

Andrew Webster, “Spaceplan is a simple sci-fi game about saving the world and also potatoes,” The Verge, May 7, 2017

A clicker is also known as an incremental game, and “consists of the player performing simple actions (such as clicking on the screen) repeatedly to gain currency.” The term might come from Cookie Clicker and Cow Clicker, perhaps the first type of these games to gain success.

lip-pointing

“The girls were instructed to slip their paintbrushes between their lips to make a fine point — a practice called lip-pointing, or a ‘lip, dip, paint routine,’ as playwright Melanie Marnich later described it.”

Kate Moore, “The Forgotten Story Of The Radium Girls, Whose Deaths Saved Thousands Of Workers’ Lives,” BuzzFeed, May 5, 2017

After the U.S. joined World War I, hundreds of young women got jobs painting watches and radio dials with radium, says BuzzFeed. Why radium? Because it glowed in the dark.

But it was also deadly. Every time the women lip-pointed, “they swallowed a little of the glowing green paint,” having been told that small amounts of radium was actually beneficial to their  health. While the effect was magical at first — these “ghost girls” would literally shine in the dance halls at night — they were soon beset with disfigurement and disease. In the end, the women’s cases “led to life-saving regulations and, ultimately, to the establishment of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration.”

Welcome to Word Buzz Wednesday, your go-to place for the most interesting words of the week. The latest: a snap decision, election style; losers winning in China; saving the Icelandic language in the digital age.

snap election

“Prime Minister Theresa May of Britain is calling for a snap election on June 8, breaking a promise not to seek a vote before 2020.”

Russell Goldman, “Key Points About a Snap Election in Britain,” The New York Times, April 18, 2017

Before 2011, says The New York Times, prime ministers in Great Britain could call an election whenever they liked. Then a law was passed scheduling a general election every five years but with two exceptions: if Parliament members “lose confidence in the government, or if two-thirds of the members agree, a ‘snap’ election can be held.”

Diaosi

“Online, types give way and Diaosi is an identification made by those who earn comfortably middle-class salaries, have mortgages and university degrees, to others who work long hours in factories for little pay, having almost no disposable income.”

Graham Candy, “Winning and Losing in Modern China,” Peeps Magazine

The Chinese term Diaosi, which translates as “loser,” originated in 2012, and was originally used to insult others online, says Peeps Magazine. However, a year later, it was estimated that over 500 million Chinese self-identified as such.

While various sources define Diaosi in various ways, they agree on three features: the majority are men born in the 1980s, play online games, and don’t see themselves as Gao Fu Shuai, those who are “tall, rich, and handsome.”

hemdem

“Ertugrul flips through the book and points to hemdem. ‘Do you have any word in English that means close friend?’”

Alexandra Locke, “The Turkish Shop Reviving Forgotten Words,” OZY, April 21, 2017

Hemdem means more than “a close friend,” says OZY. It means “sharing the same air,” a friend so close “that you’re sharing the same air in your past.”

gaman

“As we announce this landmark musical, I keep thinking about the Japanese term gaman, a word that means enduring the unbearable with dignity and strength.”

Jessica Gelt, “The George Takei musical ‘Allegiance’ is coming to L.A.,” The Los Angeles Times, April 20, 2017

Another untranslatable that comes from an Asian language is han, a Korean term that “denotes a collective feeling of oppression and isolation in the face of overwhelming odds,” and “aspects of lament and unavenged injustice.”

hundslappadrifa

“The people of Iceland, a rugged North Atlantic island settled by Norsemen about 1,100 years ago, have a unique dialect of Old Norse that has adapted to life at the edge of the Arctic. Hundslappadrifa, for example, means ‘heavy snowfall with large flakes occurring in calm wind.’”

Egill Bjarnason,“ Icelandic language at risk; robots, computers can’t grasp it,” The Associated Press, April 22, 2017

The Associated Press says Icelandic “ranks among the weakest and least-supported language in terms of digital technology – along with Irish Gaelic, Latvian, Maltese and Lithuanian.” One billion Icelandic krona, or $8.8 million, “is needed for seed funding for an open-access database to help tech developers adapt Icelandic as a language option.”