February 22, 2012 by Angela Tung

Word Soup: Movie Words

With the Academy Awards just a few days away, we’ve had movies and movie words on the mind. What better way to celebrate than with this special Word Soup dedicated to film slang and lingo?

Abby Singer

“‘Abby Singer’ is director slang for the ‘next to the last shot,’ and takes its name from an assistant director, according to DGA Magazine.”

Joyce Wadler, “Where’s John Ford When You Need Him?” The New York Times, February 2, 2005

The Abby Singer was named for Abner E. “Abby” Singer, a production manager and assistant director. When asked how many shots were left at the end of the day, Singer would always answer, “This, and one more.”

Alan Smithee

“’Alan Smithee‘ is a phony name that turns up whenever a director is so embarrassed by what’s been done to his movie that he takes his name off it.”

John Hartl, “Credit Alan Smithee for ‘Hellraiser’ Fiasco,” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, March 12, 1996

Alan Smithee – which some say is an anagram for “the alias men” – was first used for the 1969 film Death of a Gunfighter.

biopic

“A spot for Listerine, sold by Johnson & Johnson, urged viewers to ‘fight biofilm.’ That may have generated a lot of head-scratching in Hollywood, where a movie about a real person is called a ‘biopic.’”

Stuart Elliott, “Commercials at the Oscars Play It Safe and Play It Again,” The New York Times, February 28, 2011

A biopic, a blend of biography and picture, is a “a film or television biography, often with fictionalized episodes.” The word seems to have been coined by writers at Variety magazine.

blaxploitation

“For every heroine in the canon of blaxploitation movies — often filmed with her breasts popping out if her shirt at random intervals for no good reason at all — Pam Grier redeems every shirtless character she ever played in this film about a double-cross gone awry.”

Jim Izrael, “Girls, Guns and Grudges,” NPR: Tell Me More, August 28, 2011

Blaxploitation films are “a genre of American film of the 1970s featuring African-American actors in lead roles and often having antiestablishment plots, frequently criticized for stereotypical characterization and glorification of violence.” Blaxploitation is a blend of black and exploitation.

Bollywood

“The influence of Bollywood suffuses every scene of ‘Slumdog Millionaire,’ as well as Hollywood-financed diversions as various as ‘Moulin Rouge’ and ‘You Don’t Mess With the Zohan.’”

Michael Phillips, “Bollywood hybrid fails to fly,” Chicago Tribune, January 16, 2009

Bollywood refers to “the Indian film industry located in Mumbai,” and is a blend Bombay, the former name of Mumbai, and Hollywood. The word Bollywood, which may have originated in the 1970s, was inspired by an earlier blend, Tollywood, “referring to the Bengali film industry based in Tollygunge,” and dating back to 1932.

box office poison

“Nation-wide attention was directed to a statement signed by the Independent Theater Owners’ Association, which came right out in print and characterized Mae West, Greta Garbo, Joan Crawford, Katharine Hepburn, Kay Francis and Marlene Diectrich ‘as box office poison.’”

Paul Harrison, “‘Box Office Poison’ Blast Fails to Disturb Movie Moguls Trying to Cut Stars’ Salaries,” The Pittsburgh Press, May 10, 1938

The infamous “box office poison” letter was written by Harry Brandt, president of the Independent Theater Owners’ Association. Brandt tempered his statement by saying that the actors’ “dramatic ability is unquestioned but [their] box-office draw is nil.”

chew the scenery

“Combs also has a ball as over-the-top Sergio, not so much chewing the scenery as swallowing it whole.”

Martin Morrow, “Review: Get Him to the Greek,” CBC News, June 4, 2010

To chew the scenery means to overact. According to World Wide Words, the phrase is sometimes meant as a compliment, “suggesting an actor who is energetic and spirited,” and may have originated around 1891, referring first to stage actors, “which is only reasonable. . .since scenery that is close enough to you that you can chew on it, even figuratively, is usually found only on the stage.”

chick flick

“At the very least, the film [The Devil Wears Prada] is laboriously designed as a chick flick in which the male species is clearly subordinated to the female.”

“The Devil Is a Dominatrix, But Streep’s No Real Surprise,” New York Observer, July 17, 2006

A chick flick is “usually about romances, which is popular with females and comparatively unpopular with males.” Chick is slang for a girl or young woman, and first recorded in 1927, while flick is slang for a movie, first attested from 1926 as a back formation of flicker, from the flickering appearance of film at the time.

The term chick flick seems to have originated in the early 1990s, referring to films such as Thelma & Louise and Sleepless in Seattle.

chopsocky

“In the 1970s and 1980s, a blizzard of ‘chopsocky’ TV shows and films, such as the 1982 Jet Li film ‘Shaolin Temple,’ helped to sear the Buddhist legends into the popular imagination, both in China and abroad.”

Geoffrey A. Fowlers and Juliet Ye, “Kung Fu Monks Don’t Get a Kick Out of Fighting,” The Wall Street Journal, December 14, 2007

Chopsocky refers to “a genre of exaggerated martial arts films made primarily in Hong Kong and Taiwan during the 1960s and 1970s.” The term was coined by writer David J. Fox at Variety magazine, and may be a blend of chop suey, “a mixed dish served in Chinese restaurants in New York and elsewhere, as a Chinese dish (but apparently not known in China),” and sock, “to hit hard.”

cowboy shot

“If a ‘D.P’ – that’s director of photography – calls for ‘a cowboy shot,’ he may not necessarily be working on a Western. ‘When cowboys duel on a Western street, where do they go for their guns? Their holsters. So you have to photograph down almost to their knees. That’s why we call it a cowboy shot,’ he says.”

Bob Thomas, “Sound stage slang,” Sun Journal, October 31, 2005

In Europe, a cowboy shot is known as a plán americain or plano americano.

Dogme 95

“Almost a decade ago, Danish director Lars von Trier co-founded the Dogme 95 movement, which produced an ‘indisputable set of rules’ for filmmakers called ‘The Vow of Chastity.’ Among its ten commandments: ‘Shooting must be done on location’; ‘The sound must never be produced apart from the images or vice versa’; ‘The camera must be hand-held’; ‘Special lighting is not acceptable.’”

Christopher Orr, “The Move Review: ‘Dogville,’” The Atlantic, August 24, 2004

Dogme 95 was founded in 1995. Dogme is the Danish word for dogma, “authoritative teaching or doctrine; a system of established principles or tenets.”

fake Shemp

“As well as having Campbell in the lead, this particular effort was written, directed and produced by one Josh Becker who had served as second unit lighting technician and sound man on The Evil Dead and who would go an to collaborate with Raimi and Tapert on a number of occasions. He was a ‘fake shemp’ in Evil Dead II, for example, whilst he has also directed one of the Hercules pilot movies and an episode of Xena.”

Anthony Nield, “The Evil Dead,” The Digital Fix, October 5, 2005

Fake Shemp is “the term for someone who appears in a film under heavy make-up, filmed from the back, or perhaps only showing an arm or a foot.” The term was named for The Three Stooges’ Shemp Howard, who died suddenly. Shemp’s stand-in was used “appearing only from behind or with an object obscuring his face.”

grindhouse

“Grindhouses, which got their name from the bump-and-grind stripteases they featured in their previous life as burlesque houses, were seedy, rundown movie theatres in the 1970s where low-budget exploitation films titillated undiscriminating audiences with sex and violence.”

Warren Clements, “Here’s to the grindhouse – in all its nasty, loopy glory,” The Globe and Mail, October 7, 2010

The advent in the 1980s of home video and cable TV threatened to make grindhouses obsolete.

it girl

“Clara Bow, still showing the flash of beauty she displayed as the ‘It Girl’ of Hollywood’s flaming past, emerged from self-imposed obscurity Monday to bury her husband of 30 years, Lieut. Gov. Rex Bell of Nevada.”

“Clara Bow, ‘It Girl’ of Movies, Beautiful at Husband’s Funeral,” St. Joseph Gazette, July 10, 1962

It girl is “a term for a young woman who possesses the quality ‘It’,” or an attractive quality difficult to describe or express. The term was coined either by Rudyard Kipling around 1904 or British novelist and scripwriter, Elinor Glyn, in her 1927 film It, which starred Clara Bow, who afterward became known as the It Girl.

J-horror

“Arguably the greatest film of the so-called J-horror wave of the late ’90s and early 2000s, Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s ‘Pulse’ brought the current of apocalyptic dread that runs through Japanese pop culture into the Internet age with a vengeance.”

Andrew O’Hehir, “Japan’s cinema of disaster, from Godzilla to J-horror,” Salon, March 15, 2011

J-horror refers to the genre of Japanese horror films that tend “to focus on psychological horror and tension building.” Although such films gained popularity in the 1990s, the term seems to have originated in the early 2000s. The earliest citation we found was from The New York Times: “[Director Hideo Nakata] is credited as one of the creators of a new, scarier, psychological horror genre known as J-horror, with less splatter and a lot more dread.”

J-horror may be a play on an earlier term, J-pop, coined in the 1990s and referring to popular, non-traditional, Japanese music.

Kubrick stare

“[The Shining] also has what Roger Ebert describes as The Kubrick Stare, with a character – in this case Torrance – staring into camera as he goes mad, with his head down and his eyes looking up.”

James White, “7 Respected Directors Who Did Horror,” Total Film, July 3, 2009

The Kubrick stare refers to director Stanley Kubrick. In Vincent LoBrutto’s 1999 biography of Kubrick, the stare is referred to as the Kubrick crazy stare. Kubrick’s cinematographer Douglas Milsome said that in Full Metal Jacket, Vincent D’Onofrio “flashes what people are now referring to as the ‘Kubrick crazy stare.’ Stanley has a stare like that which is very penetrating and frightens the hell out of you sometimes.”

MacGuffin

“But the microfilm that the bad guys are smuggling out of the country — that’s just what Hitchcock called the MacGuffin, the pretense for the movie, the silly excuse upon which he pinned his real story: a man is mistaken for another man and nearly murdered because of this mistake.”

“The Mother of All Horror Films,” Newsweek, January 6, 2010

World Wide Words says the first recorded usage of MacGuffin was by Alfred Hitchcock in 1939, who described it as “the mechanical element that usually crops up in any story.” However, the origin of the term is obscure.

magical Negro

“Perhaps it’s time for the ‘magical negro’ to retire. Just in recent years, this mythical figure has come to the aid of a number of cinema’s troubled whites: a golfer (The Legend of Bagger Vance), a shallow executive (The Family Man), an uptight attorney (Bringing Down the House), and The One (The Matrix-es).”

Tricia Olszewski, “Film Review: Black Snake Moan,” Washington City Paper, March 2, 2007

The term magical Negro was coined by director Spike Lee in a 2001 speech at Washington State University, in which he expressed disgust with “a recent trend toward characters he called ‘the super-duper, magical Negro,'” characters who “have amazing powers that benefit white people, but not blacks,” similar to “the age-old image of the slave who loves slavery.”

manic pixie dream girl

“Who’s just as cute as a button? Who’s the most deliciously delirious young woman, always up to her false eyelashes in madcap romps? It’s the Manic Pixie Dream Girl, of course.”

Neda Ulaby, “Manic Pixie Dream Girls: A Cinematic Scourge?” NPR, October 9, 2008

The term manic pixie dream girl was coined by film critic Nathan Rabin in 2007 regarding Kirsten Dunst’s character in the film Elizabethtown, “that bubbly, shallow cinematic creature that exists solely in the fevered imaginations of sensitive writer-directors to teach broodingly soulful young men to embrace life and its infinite mysteries and adventures.”

martini shot

“I stuck around after even after I wrapped to see the martini shot of the entire show. I could feel director Jack Bender’s resistance to call ‘print’ on that last take. In fact I’m pretty sure he asked for one more take to delay the inevitable.”

Eric Ditzian, “’Lost’ Star Jorge Garcia Pens Farewell To The Island,” MTV.com, March 21, 2010

A martini shot refers to the last shot of the day. According to Dave Knox, author of Strike the Baby and Kill the Blonde: An Insider’s Guide to Film Slang, “The last [shot] is a martini because the next shot is out of glass.”

mockbuster

“The ‘mockbuster’ is a film based on the story of a big blockbuster movie, which is cheaper, shorter and is usually released straight-to-DVD long before the original is anywhere close to coming out in the shops.”

Fiona Pryor, “Spoofing the big film blockbuster,” BBC News, May 17, 2010

Mockbuster is a blend of mock and blockbuster, a film “that sustains widespread popularity and achieves enormous sales.” It’s also known as a knockbuster, a blend of knockoff, an unauthorized imitation, often poorly-made, and blockbuster.

mockumentary

“What Reiner did not foresee was that in its 25-year existence, ‘Spinal Tap’ has influenced both the way we tell stories—Michael Schur, creator of ‘The Office,’ recently said the mockumentary is his preferred storytelling format—and the way we understand them.”

Jennie Yabroff, “The Real Spinal Tap,” Newsweek, April 10, 2009

Mockumentary is a blend of mock and documentary. As for first use, while the OED notes appearances of the word in 1965, the word may have gained popularity with the 1984 film, This is Spinal Tap.

nuke the fridge

“The story isn’t going to set the world on fire, but ‘Tintin’ is still a hell of a lot more entertaining than 2008′s ‘Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull,’ a movie so miscalculated it inspired a new variation on ‘jumping the shark.’ Now the moment when franchises officially run out of good ideas, they ‘nuke the fridge.’”

Matt Singer, “Indiana Jones and the razor-sharp criticism,” IFC.com, December 26, 2011

The term nuke the fridge was coined in 2008 “in the wake of ‘Indiana Jones the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull,’ in which Indy survives an atomic bomb blast by hiding in a refrigerator.”

oater

“The craggy, mellowing Eastwood directs himself admirably in this scenic, first-class oater [The Unforgiven], which strikes an ideal balance between character piece and action film as it portrays a rapidly changing way of life.”

John Farr, “The Hard-Won Legacy of Gene Hackman,” The Huffington Post, March 21, 2010

An oater is “a movie about frontier or cowboy life; a western,” and is named for “the prominence of horses, known for their taste for oats, in such films.” The term originated in 1946. See also horse opera.

Oscar

“The golden guy known to the world as the Oscar, the real star of Sunday’s Academy Awards, has become a Hollywood icon over the past 82 years, but the origin of his name has been lost in time.”

“Oscar: Hollywood’s golden mystery man,” The Independent, March 2, 2010

The Oscar is “a statuette awarded by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences,” first awarded in 1929, and not named Oscar till the early 1930s. According to Andy Bowers, there are multiple claims to the origin, including actress Bette Davis remarking on the resemblance between the statue’s behind and her first husband’s, Harman Oscar Nelson; columnist Sidney Skolsky referring to an old vaudeville line, “Will you have a cigar, Oscar?”; and Academy librarian Maragret Herrick noting the small gold man bore a resemblance to her uncle Oscar.

quota quickies

“The standard histories maintain that there wasn’t much worth seeing [in prewar British cinema]: this was, after all, the era of the ‘quota quickie,’ cheap little movies made solely to fulfill the demands of the 1927 Cinematographic Film Act, which required that 5 percent of the movies on British screens actually be British.”

Dave Kehr, “New DVDs: Early British Cinema,” The New York Times, September 29, 2008

Quota quickies may be likened to B-movies, low budget movies with poor production values.

romcom

“Most romcoms attempting that delay tactic instead give us screaming matches, ridiculous misunderstandings and other exasperating nonsense that bring us to the brink of loathing.”

Jennie Punter, “Just Wright: The right mix for a slamdunk romcom,” The Globe and Mail, May 14, 2010

Romcom is a blend of romantic comedy, “films with light-hearted, humorous plotlines, centered on romantic ideals such as that true love is able to surmount most obstacles.” The term romcom seems to have originated in the late 1990s regarding films such as You’ve Got Mail and One Fine Day.

sexploitation

“The cinema’s biggest hits were underground classics such as Thundercrack and Cafe Flesh; John Waters’s 70s trash trilogy Pink Flamingos, Female Trouble and Desperate Living; and the work of sexploitation king Russ Meyer.”

Tony Paley, “Cinema of sin: London’s old Scala picturehouse,” The Guardian, July 31, 2011

Sexploitation is a portmanteau of sex and exploitation, and refers to “exploitative use of explicit sexual material in movies.” It attests to 1942.

spaghetti western

“Sergio Leone, the Italian director who gave class to the term ‘spaghetti western,’ has made some weird movies in his day but nothing to match ‘Once Upon a Time in America,’ a lazily haullucinatory epic that means to encapsulate approximately 50 years of American social history into a single film.”

Vincent Canby, “Movie Review: Once Upon a Time in America,” The New York Times, June 1, 1984

A spaghetti western is a “a low-budget Western movie produced by a European (especially an Italian) film company.” The term originated in 1969.

Spielberg face, the

“‘Nowadays, it seems you can’t have a spectacular special effects action sequence without a Spielberg face to cue you to be in awe,’ Mr. Lee writes.”

Melena Ryzik, “Staring in Awe? It’s ‘the Spielberg Face,'” The New York Times, December 19, 2011

The Spielberg face, which refers to director Steven Spielberg, was coined last year by Kevin B. Lee who compiled a video essay of these close-up shots of actors with “eyes open, staring in wordless wonder in a moment where time stands still,” a look that “has come to be shorthand for a cinematic discovery on the part of the characters and the audience.”

Wilhelm scream

“A single scream, recorded for the 1951 film ‘Distant Drums,’ has made its way into dozens of films, games and TV shows. Afficianados call it the ‘Wilhelm Scream’ and have cataloged many of the films in which it appeared, from Hercules to Pirates of the Caribbean, The X-Files to the short ‘Golden Dreams’ film at Disney California Adventure.”

Cory Doctorow, “Wilhelm Scream – Hollywood’s favorite scream,” Boing Boing, November 29, 2006

The Wilhelm scream was created by sound designer Ben Burtt in 1977, “which he called ‘Wilhelm’ after the character that let out the scream in ‘Charge at Feather River.’”

wuxia

“Through martial arts practice the Wuxia hero becomes, in effect, superhuman. Lightning-fast reflexes allow for the ‘zhao’ fighting style, turning everyday objects into lethal weapons, whether thrown or wielded. Opponents can be paralysed with a single accurate blow or avoided by scaling walls or through the power of flight.”

“House of Flying Daggers,” Spiked, December 23, 2004

Wuxia, which is Chinese in origin, also refers to literature, Chinese opera, and video games. Wu translates as “martial, military, armed,” while xia translates as “honorable, chivalrous, hero.”

This list is far from complete! What are some of your favorite movie words?

February 15, 2012 by Angela Tung - 28 Comments

Word Soup: Downton Abbey

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!

February 8, 2012 by Angela Tung - 1 Comment

Word Soup Wednesday

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!

February 1, 2012 by Angela Tung

Word Soup-er Bowl

Welcome to this special Super Bowl installment of Word Soup!

While some of you will be rooting for one team or the other this Sunday, what we’re excited about are the ads, and those funny, interesting, and ridiculous words associated with those ads. To celebrate, we’ve rounded up some words from Super Bowl ads of the past.

1984

Announcer: “On January 24, Apple computer will introduce Macintosh, and you’ll see why 1984 won’t be like 1984.”

“1984,” Apple Macintosh, 1984

1984 refers to George Orwell’s dystopian novel of the same name, which takes place in “a world of perpetual war, pervasive government surveillance, and incessant public mind control.” Citizens “are subordinated to the totalitarian cult of personality of Big Brother, the deified Party leader who rules with a philosophy that decries individuality and reason as thoughtcrimes.” In contrast, the Macintosh symbolizes freedom, independent-thinking, and individualism, ironic today considering the proliferation of Apple products and the cult of personality around Steve Jobs.

In 2007, a controversial internet ad mashed up the original Apple commercial with a speech from Hilary Clinton, casting Clinton as Big Brother.

cat herder

Cowboy: “Being a cat herder is probably about the toughest thing I think I’ve ever done.”

“Cat Herders,” Electronic Data Systems, 2000

Herding cats “refers to an attempt to control or organize a class of entities which are uncontrollable or chaotic,” and “implies a task that is extremely difficult or impossible to do, primarily due to chaotic factors.” The term may have originated in the technology industry in the mid 1980s. “Managing senior programmers is like herding cats.”

connectile dysfunction

Announcer: “You know the feeling. You can’t take care of business the way others do. It’s called connectile dysfunction, a condition caused by inadequate broadband coverage.”

“Connectile Dysfunction,” Sprint, 2007

Connectile dysfunction plays on the medical term, erectile dysfunction, “the inability of a man to obtain or sustain an erection.”

creamed

Joe Namath: “I’m so excited. I’m gonna get creamed!”

“Joe Namath and Farrah Fawcett,” Noxzema, 1973

The word creamed here has a double-meaning: “badly beaten; lost by a considerable margin” and having cream applied to one’s person.

drinkability

Woman: “I do get a hint of drinkability right away.”
Man: “Does my pen have writability?”

“Meeting,” Budweiser, 2009

Drinkability is “the extent to which something is drinkable,” and prior to this Budweiser campaign may have referred mainly to wine. The ad campaign may poke fun at wine tasting and formal terms such as drinkability and ageability, or aging potential.

fandemonium

Announcer: “Monster.com and the NFL are searching for a fan amongst fans to become a part of NFL history. The director of fandemonium will announce the pick at the NFL draft.”

“Director of Fandemonium,” Monster.com, 2009

Fandemonium is a blend of fan and pandemonium, and refers to the “wild uproar or noise” created by fans. Fan may be a shortening of fanatic, “a person affected by zeal or enthusiasm, particularly on religious subjects,” which ultimately comes from the Latin fanum, “temple.” But the word fan may also be influenced by the fancy, “all of a class who exhibit and cultivate any peculiar taste or fancy,” especially for prize fighting, and is attested by 1735.

Pandemonium comes from Pandæmonium, the capital of Hell in Paradise Lost, the epic poem by John Milton. The word contains the Greek pan, “all,” and the Latin daemonium, “demon.”

Force, the

“The Force,” Volkswagen, 2011

The Force is “a binding, metaphysical, and ubiquitous power in the fictional universe of the Star Wars galaxy created by George Lucas.” An ability of the Force is telekinesis, “movement of or motion in an object, animate or inanimate, produced without contact with the body producing the motion.” The word force comes from the Latin fortis, “strong.”

Man: “G to me means greatness.”

“Talking Heads,” Gatorade, 2009

Ozzy Osbourne: “Welcome to 4G!. . All aboard the 5G train!. . .How many bloody G’s are there?”

“Ozzy Osbourne and Justin Beiber,” Best Buy, 2011

In the Gatorade commercial, G has a variety of meanings that have to do with endurance and perseverance, while in the Best Buy commercial, G has no meaning. 3G and 4G referred to third or fourth generation wireless technology, but are essentially meaningless marketing terms.

magic chip

“The Magic Chip,” Doritos, 2009

magic fridge

Dude: “Guys, hurry up! The magic fridge is back!”

“The Magic Fridge,” Bud Light, 2006

These two commercials use the term magic to make ordinary things like corn chips and beer seem other-worldly and powerful, while simultaneously poking fun at this idea.

milk-a-holic

Baby Girl: “And that milk-a-holic Lindsay wasn’t over?”

“Jealous Girlfriend,” E-Trade, 2010

A milk-a-holic (a blend of milk and alcoholic) is someone who is addicted to milk. As Erin McKean stated in a Boston Globe piece, the “-holic suffix is used for any addiction” (chocoholic, shopaholic, workaholic). Actress Lindsay Lohan sued E-Trade over this ad, claiming that the baby Lindsay referred to her and her reported problems with substance abuse.

office linebacker

“Terry Tate: Office Linebacker,” Reebok, 2003

Office linebacker plays on the idea of superfluous jobs created in the name of pseudo-efficiency and faux-continuous improvement.

super human

Announcer: “Your inner hero is calling. Answer at the one place we can all feel super human again.”

“Calling All Heroes,” Universal Orlando Resort, 2009

To feel human means to feel like oneself and not part of a machine. The ad plays on this phrase by adding super, implying that the product will make one feel even more human, and therefore even better, as well as like a superhero.

tranny

Announcer: “Truckers know towing 10,000 pounds up a steep grade ain’t good for your tranny.”

“Killer Heat,” Toyota, 2009

Tranny here is short for transmission. Tranny is also short for transvestite, “a person who dresses and acts in a style or manner traditionally associated with the opposite sex.”

vroom vroom

Conan O’Brien: “Vroom vroom party starter.”

“Swedish,” Bud Light, 2009

Vroom is “the loud, roaring noise of an engine operating at high speed.” The word is imitative in origin and attests to 1967. The earliest citation we could find was February 1967, in a Boston Globe article: “When I tried a sudden ‘vroom’ up to 50, the extra speed came slowly.” The ad’s use of vroom vroom may be a play on Mazda’s zoom zoom ad campaign.

wardrobe malfunction

“I am sorry that anyone was offended by the wardrobe malfunction during the halftime performance of the Super Bowl,” Timberlake said in a statement. “It was not intentional and is regrettable.”

“NFL, FCC upset by halftime show; CBS apologizes,” USA Today, February 1, 2004

While wardrobe malfunction does not originate from an ad (though the phrase did inspire at least one commercial), we thought no post about Super Bowl words would be complete without it. The phrase was coined by Justin Timberlake’s management to describe the incident that occurred during the 2004 Super Bowl halftime show, in which Janet Jackson’s breast was accidentally bared. The phrase implies that no one was at fault except Jackson’s wardrobe; malfunction implies mechanical rather than human error.

The incident has also been referred to as boobgate and nipplegate. Gate refers to Watergate, “a series of scandals occurring during the Nixon administration in which members of the executive branch organized illegal political espionage against their perceived opponents and were charged with violation of the public trust, bribery, contempt of Congress, and attempted obstruction of justice.” Adding gate to a word signals a scandal or controversy.

wassup

Various dudes: “WASSUP!”

“Wassup,” Budweiser, 2006

The wassup commercials first ran in 1999 and were “based on a short film, entitled ‘True’, written and directed by Charles Stone III, that featured Stone and several of his childhood friends” sitting around “talking on the phone and saying ‘Whassup!’ to one another in a comical way.” Other versions of the commercial include “What are you doing?” for yuppies and “How you doin’?” for “Jersey guys.”

The word wassup is a corruption of the phrase what’s up. Other variations include whazzup, what up, and ‘sup. What’s up is commonly thought to have originated from the Bugs Bunny catchphrase, “What’s up, Doc?” first used in 1940. However, an earlier citation can be found O. Henry’s Sherlock Holmes parody, The Adventures of Shamrock Jolnes, in the name of a Dr. Watson send-up, Dr. Whatsup. “Sit down, Whatsup, and excuse me for a few moments.”

For all the Super Bowl ads that ever were, check out this site, and keep your eyes and ears peeled this Sunday for even more Word Soup-worthy Super Bowl ad words.

January 19, 2012 by Angela Tung

Word Soup

Welcome to another installment of Word Soup!

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!

January 4, 2012 by Angela Tung - 2 Comments

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]

December 21, 2011 by Angela Tung - 2 Comments

Word Soup Wednesday

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.

Achilles’ head

Jon Stewart: “What’s Rick Perry’s Achilles heel?”

John Oliver: “He doesn’t have one. Rick Perry has an Achilles’ head.”

Rick Perry: “[The President] had two opportunities. Or he didn’t have two opportunities, he had two choices. Actually he had three.”

December 12, 2011, The Daily Show

An Achilles’ heel is “a seemingly small but actually crucial weakness.” In Greek mythology, Achilles was a “Greek hero of the Trojan War” who was “invulnerable in all of his body except for his heel,” and who would die as a result “of a small wound on his heel.” An Achilles’ head is a large and obvious weakness.

anchor baby

Stephen Colbert: “Now that anchor baby has been declared offensive, I hold little hope for my submission: grappling baby. Noun. The all too common occurrence of a pregnant woman in Mexico aiming her birth canal at America to launch her baby over the border so then she can climb in using the umbilical cord.”

December 12, 2011, The Colbert Report

An anchor baby is “a child born in the U.S. to illegal aliens,” with the idea that the child will anchor or fix the parents to the U.S. After a complaint from the Immigration Policy Center, the “lexicowards” (as Colbert jokingly says) at American Heritage Dictionary added “offensive” and “disparaging term” to the definition.

b-mail

Marge: “I just a got a message from Maggie in my brain.”

Homer: “Oh, a b-mail!”

“Holidays of Future Passed,” The Simpsons, December 11, 2011

B-mail is short for “brain mail,” and plays on email and Gmail.

Bauerschwein

Angelina: “I know who killed Hap and Rolf. A cop. A Bauerschwine.”

“The Three Bad Wolves,” Grimm, December 9, 2011

A Bauerschwein is a pig-like creature that can appear in human form. German in origin, bauer means “peasant, farmer” while schwein means “pig, hog.” Pig is also a disparaging term for a police officer.

Blutbad

Eddie: “Just so you know, Reinegen and Blutbaden are not drinking buddies.”

“Danse Macabre,” Grimm, December 8, 2011

Blutbaden are werewolf-type creatures who can change from human form into wolf form at will. The word Blutbad is German in origin and translates literally as “blood bath.”

Bumbleflex

Chris: “It’s an experimental fabric called Bumbleflex. It’s made of synthetic bees’ wings.”

“Citizen Knope,” Parks & Recreation, December 8, 2011

The fictional brand name Bumbleflex plays on the idea of the word flex as a popular name for athletic apparel (implying both flexibility and strength, as one flexes one’s muscles). Bumble refers to bumblebee.

concu-droid

Love Android: “I am leaving with your sister’s concu-droid.”

“Holidays of Future Passed,” The Simpsons, December 11, 2011

Concu-droid is a blend of concubine and android, and refers to the prostitute androids portrayed in the film A.I. Artificial Intelligence.

Gefrieren Geber

Eddie: “Hey I’m pretty good, but it’s true. I’m no Gefrieren Geber.”

Nick: “Wait a minute. You’re telling me that Santa Claus is a…?”

Eddie: “Well, think about it. I mean, who else could live up there?”

“Let Your Hair Down,” Grimm, December 16, 2011

Gefrieren Geber is German in origin and translates as “frozen giver,” playing on the idea that Santa Claus, the giver of presents, lives in the North Pole.

Geiger

Nick [examining rat cage]: “Geiger Pest Control. You know them?”

“Danse Macabre,” Grimm, December 8, 2011

Geiger is the German word for “violinist; fiddler.” Roddy Geiger is a talented violinist who has the ability to control rats with music, much like the Pied Piper of Hamelin.

glee

Mr: Rad: “Glee!

It’s like a drug that you use

That turns your pain into shoes

And your shoes into dance!”

“Regional Holiday Music,” Community, December 8, 2011

Glee is “exultant or playful exhilaration; demonstrative joy or delight; merriment; mirth,” or “in music, a composition for three or more solo voices.” Here glee refers to something overly jubilant, to the point of masking pain or reality like a drug.

Krampus

Anthony Bourdain: “What I’m thinking about is Krampus. . .The original bad, bad Santa. Because in Austria, when they tell you what happens to bad boys and girls, they ain’t fucking kidding.”

Holiday Special, No Reservations, December 12, 2011

Krampus is a mythical creature who:

accompanies St. Nicholas (Santa Claus) during the Christmas season, warning and punishing bad children, in contrast to St. Nicholas, who gives gifts to good children. When the Krampus finds a particularly naughty child, it stuffs the child in its sack and carries the frightened thing away to its lair, presumably to devour for its Christmas dinner.

The word may come from the Old High German krampen, meaning “claw.”

Krav Maga

Commander: “[Dr. Magnus] and her friend went all Krav Maga on my men.”

“Acolyte,” Sanctuary, December 9, 2011

Krav Maga is “a hand-to-hand combat system developed by the Israeli Defense Forces.” In this instance, Krav Maga, usually a noun, is being used as a verb, an example 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.”

pooping log

Anthony Bourdain: “A pooping log with a smiley face, it has its own Christmas carol and a candy-based defecation ceremony.”

Holiday Special, No Reservations, December 12, 2011

The pooping log refers to the Catalonian tradition, Tió de Nadal, which translates as “Christmas Log.” On Christmas Day or Eve, the log is placed in the fireplace and encouraged, by the beating of sticks and the singing of Tio de Nadal songs, to “shit” candies, nuts, and other treats, which are then shared communally.

Reinegen

Eddie: “Reinegen? They’re bottom of the food chain, man. Let me tell you, the food in their chain – gourmet is not their forte.”

“Danse Macabre,” Grimm, December 8, 2011

Reinegen are rat-like creatures which can take on human form. The word is based on the German word reinigen, which means “to clean; to purge; to scavenge.” While the Reinegen are exterminators who purge places of rats, they’re also like rats, which are known scavengers.

reverse bully-ism

Jeff: “Oh please, not liking glee club doesn’t make us bullies, and implying that is reverse bully-ism!”

“Regional Holiday Music,” Community, December 8, 2011

Reverse bully-ism, like reverse discrimination, places the normally dominant group, in this case the bullies, in the position of the victim (the bullied).

Santa Lap

Schmidt: “I have a really bad case of Santa Lap. The entire marketing department is wearing wool.”

“The 23rd,” New Girl, December 13, 2011

Santa Lap is similar to repetitive strain injuries such as runner’s toe; tennis elbow; mouse elbow; or De Quervain syndrome, also known as gamer’s thumb or washerwoman’s sprain and named for the Swiss surgeon who first discovered it.

silk stocking tea

Anthony Bourdain: “Silk stocking tea, as it’s called, is thankfully not made with used undergarments. It’s called that for the color.”

“Hong Kong,” The Layover, December 19, 2011

Silk stocking tea, a Hong Kong-style milk tea, may also be named for the shape of the filter and the “intense brown colour” the filter develops “as a result of prolonged tea drenching.” Also known as pantyhose tea.

soy sauce Western

Matt Walsh: “There’s a kind of cuisine in Hong Kong that they sometimes call soy sauce Western. This kind of thing doesn’t go back 100 years. It goes back 40, 50.”

Anthony Bourdain: “There’s a similar Japanese and a similar Korean genre cuisine also. Soldiers asking local chefs to recreate dishes that they had in the States, and cooks who had never eaten the original, cooks who had never eaten pizza or spaghetti and meatballs trying to recreate it for some drunk G.I. who’s describing it.”

“Hong Kong,” The Layover, December 19, 2011

Soy sauce Western cuisine, which, says CNNGO.com, fuses “the imported goods and flavors of the West with existing local tastes,” should not be confused with the spaghetti western, low-budget cowboy movies “produced by an Italian-based company and filmed in Europe,” especially Italy.

swagger coach

Tom: “Tom Haverford, image consultant and swagger coach.”

“Citizen Knope,” Parks & Recreation, December 8, 2011

Swagger means to “strut with a defiant or insolent air,” as well as “an insolent strut; a piece of bluster; boastfulness, bravado, or insolence in manner.” In modern terms, swag or swagger also means attitude or mojo. A swagger coach makes sure his or her clients’ “swagger is at very high levels at all times.” Also, swagga coach.

Finally, from @4ndyman, we received the following:

blood nog

Lily: “So here’s a new twist on old traditions, starting with a cocktail. This is a bloody mary eggnog, a blood nog!”

“Christmas is Cummings,” Whitney, December 8, 2011

Blood nog is a blend of bloody mary and eggnog. The origin of the bloody mary, a mixture of vodka and tomato juice, is disputed. It may be named after Queen Mary I of England, aka “Bloody Mary”; a waitress named Mary at Bucket of Blood, a Chicago bar; or the actress Mary Pickford. Nog is another name for ale and may come from the Norfolk dialect.

Great addition, Andy!

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!