Language and Humor Blog

Having trouble finding early uses of slang and colloquialisms? If you're looking for instances of American (and possibly Canadian) ones, the television clips and episodes on Hulu from NBC Universal (NBC, USA Network, Bravo, Sci Fi, Sundance Channel, Oxygen) and News Corp. (Fox, FX, Fuel TV) are a useful language corpus.

I was sent an old clip of Saturday Night Live (SNL). The clip happened to contain a "Wayne's World"-esque "NOT!" (e.g., "That sounds like fun—NOT!" for "That does not sound like fun"), but it's thirteen years earlier.

A footnote. NOT! (Actually, a post-clause NOT! footnote)

I learned the post-clause NOT! expression from the "Wayne's World" segments on SNL in early 1990. The sketches began at the beginning of the fifteenth season in Fall 1989, but I don't think the post-clause NOT! appeared until the Tom Hanks-hosted February 17, 1990, episode (Season 15, Episode 13).

Tom Hanks plays Garth's (Dana Carvey) cousin Barry, a roadie for Aerosmith. Barry has brought Aerosmith to appear on Wayne's World, Wayne (Mike Myers) and Garth's community-access cable show. After Barry demonstrates his roadie duties, comes:

WAYNE: Anyways, Barry, uh, that was really interesting. [mugging to camera] NOT!

(Waynes [sic] World with Aerosmith, 04:39-04:43)

With the movie Wayne's World in 1992, the expression became even more popular. It even made the American Dialect Society's 1992 Word of the Year. According to Sheidlower and Lighter (1993), however, the usage of post-clause NOT! is older than that:

The publicists for the movie Wayne's World claim the construction was coined in the late 1970s by Steve Martin and Gilda Radner in "The Nerds," an ongoing sketch on Saturday Night Live:

That's a fabulous science fair project. . . . Not!

(Jesse T. Sheidlower and Jonathan E. Lighter (1993). A Recent Coinage (Not!). American Speech, 68(2) (Summer, 1993), 213-218 [first page].)

For the SNL quote, Sheidlower and Lighter cite a 1992 "On Language" column by William Safire. Safire calls it "belated negation" and gives the sketch as 1978.

(William Safire (1992). On Language; Not! New York Times Magazine. March 8, 1992, 20.)

That would be the April 22, 1978, episode (Season 3, Episode 18), with Steve Martin as host. That sketch doesn't seem to be on Hulu. At any rate, at least my discovery is still a little older. The usage I stumbled on is from two years earlier.

In the very first season of SNL, the May 8, 1976, episode (Season 1, Episode 19) has Madeline Kahn as host. The show has a slumber party sketch about what a group of young girls think sex is:

MADELINE KAHN: That is why you should only do it after you are married. Because then you won't be so embarrassed in front of your husband because you will [would?] be in the same family.

LARAINE NEWMAN (sarcastically, with only a slight pause): Oh, well. Now I really want to get married. Not!

(Slumber Party, 02:46-03:00.)

I can't get too excited about this either, however. It turns out, according to Mark Israel (Postfix "not"), the construction is a lot older and goes back at least to 1905 with Ellis Parker Butler's Irish English poem Pigs is Pigs (". . . 'Cert'nly, me dear frind Flannery. Delighted!' Not!").

Much not ado about, or not to do with, Buffy

While searching in vain for the Steve Martin "NOT!" clip on Hulu, I found another "The Nerds" sketch and stumbled on an old usage of yet another expression. This time it was post-adjective much? (e.g. "Awkward much?" for "You're very awkward").

I first noticed post-adjective much? in the Buffy the Vampire Slayer pilot, ("Welcome to the Hellmouth," Season 1, Episode 1; first aired March 10, 1997). Cordelia (Charisma Carpenter) informs Buffy (Sarah Michelle Gellar) that there has been a mysterious death at their high school. Buffy wants to find out if it was the work of a vampire without blowing her secret identity:

BUFFY: How did he die?

CORDELIA: I don’t know.

BUFFY: Well, were there any marks?

CORDELIA: Morbid much? I didn’t ask!

(Welcome to the Hellmouth, 15:37-15:43)

The construction not surprisingly predates the show, but I was surprised to find it two decades earlier.

On SNL's October 7, 1978, episode (Season 4, Episode 1), with The Rolling Stones as host, the teen nerds Lisa Loopner (Gilda Radner; Safire spelled it "Lupner") and Todd (Bill Murray) are hanging out in Lisa's kitchen:

TODD: I really need your help with my history homework.

LISA: Well, Todd, you know if you sincerely need my help, you can count on it.

TODD: Oh, good. Because I'm studying all about [grabs at Lisa's shirt neck and tries to peek down her shirt] underdeveloped nations!

LISA (shouting and smiling): Cut it out, Todd! Cut it out! [lightly swats him away] Stop it!

TODD (points at Lisa's chest and mock laughs to a pretend audience): Underdeveloped much?

(Nerds Broken Fridge, 02:37-02:55)

The bit is quite crass, of course, but there's the post-adjective much? construction way back in 1978.

As if I couldn't waste enough time watching comedy and other clips and episodes on Hulu, now I shudder to realize that there's a corpus linguistics use as well. NOT! No, there truly is.

See also:
Gateway to Corpus Linguistics

Corpus.byu.edu (English, Spanish, and Portuguese online corpora)

Slayer Slang: A Buffy the Vampire Slayer Lexicon by Michael Adams (2004, Oxford University Press, ISBN13: 9780195175998)

As I wrote last year (2007 (First) NZ Sign Language Week), New Zealand has given official status to New Zealand Sign Language, the natural language of New Zealand's Deaf community.

New Zealand Sign Language Week is this week (May 5-11, 2008). That link has information, video signing samples, and downloadable PDF cards of the two-handed manual alphabet used for fingerspelling names and sometimes English words within the related British Sign Language (BSL), Australian Sign Language (Auslan), and New Zealand Sign Language (NZSL). (The unrelated American Sign Language [ASL] uses a one-handed manual alphabet adapted from French Sign Language's.)

Straight Goods has a "definition list for new mothers," with new meanings for familiar words. My favorites are:

• Family planning: The art of spacing your children the proper distance apart to keep you on the edge of financial disaster[.]
• Feedback: The inevitable result when the baby doesn't appreciate the strained carrots.
• Puddle: A small body of water that draws other small bodies wearing dry shoes into it.
• Show off: A child who is more talented than yours.
• Sterilize: What you do to your first baby's pacifier by boiling it and to your last baby's pacifier by blowing on it.
• Storeroom: The distance required between the supermarket aisles so that children in shopping carts can't quite reach anything.

Happy Mother's Day to all who perform that vital role.

In the movie Drillbit Taylor, some high school boys are looking for a bodyguard to protect them from a bully. They settle on Owen Wilson after interviewing others like Adam Baldwin, who tells them hiring a bodyguard is a stupid idea.

Baldwin (unrelated to Alec and family) played the high-school bodyguard in My Bodyguard (1980) and wore the same kind of white T-shirt plus army-surplus jacket as in this movie.

On episode 13.1 (2008) of the Globe Trekker TV series (also known as Pilot Guides and formerly known as Lonely Planet), they traveled to Los Angeles and Hollywood and took in the L.A. County Coroner's Office gift shop.

Along with products like dead-body-outline beach towels and toe-tag key chains was their own sign:

Shoplifters' next of kin will be notified.

Gift Shop site: Skeletons in the Closet

If you've been here to Language and Humor Blog before, you may have noticed a certain lack of roadway license. Er, street cred. That's all about to change with this post about The Extensive Hip Hop Rhyming Dictionary (On-line Records, US$8.95).

I'm not a fan of rap music or hip hop, but I find the phrasal rhymes very interesting. The book could be of use not only to rappers but also to song parodists (including science-fiction filkers), whose alternate lyrics often rhyme with those of the original song.

I notice that some of the examples in the book aren't rhymes proper (same vowel sound and same final-consonant sound) but assonance (same vowel sound). For example, the phrase asthma attack with blast from the past has the "az" of asthma and "ast" of blast. That's assonance, but the consonant sounds are so close that it's also slant rhyme (approximate rhyme). However, the "ak" of attack with the "ast" of past is just assonance. With the unstressed schwa vowels, there's also rhyme ("uh" of attack with "uh" of the) and slant rhyme ("muh" of asthma with "frum" of from), which keep the rhythm/beat to STRESSED-unstressed-unstressed-STRESSED. The last set also has consonance (same consonant sound) from the "m" in asthma and from.

Table of Contents (PDF)

Excerpts (PDF)

You might want this book if your level of "free flow" now is at "zero."

See also:

Free Online Rhyming Dictionary
Rhyme with
WikiRhymer Rhyming Dictionary
Rhyme Generator

It's that time of year again. It's time for Youtube's sketch comedy contest: Sketchies 2. Actually, "that time of year" is three months earlier this year (must be the leap year thing), as last year's contest started in May (Summer 2007 Youtube sketch comedy contest).

You could win $25,000 (in money) and $15,000 in film-making equipment.

This time the contest is more structured. The first video, three minutes maximum, has to be about a road trip and has to incorporate a traditional musical instrument. The second video, if you're a finalist, is to be announced.

To enter, you also have to be an adult and live in the United States.

• Open Call: Submit first video February 18 to March 3, 2008 (11:59:59 p.m. Eastern Standard Time).
• Round 1: If you're one of ten finalists chosen by March 19th, submit second video by April 6th.
• Round 2: The winner will be announced on April 18, 2008.

Official rules

Last year's winner was Awkward Pictures, with the videos "FriendBuddies" and "Rodney & Zak."

Don't forget to vote in Round 1 (March 13-19, 2008) and Round 2 (April 9-15).

I've brought back Classic Coke! Oh, actually this is less caramel-colored and more word-filled.

For those who like variety, I've relabeled the About page: About (plain version), and I've brought back the original, playful version as: About (playin' version).

The latter was more creative but took too long to get to the point for the Web-surfing culture. However, I realized I can have it both ways. Like Classic Coke, though, the old one is slightly different from the original. I'm a perennial editor.

Edit: I've just made a few small changes to this post.

Do you like The Office (US), especially Steve Carell's Michael Scott character? Do you dislike The Office? Did The Office use to steal your lunch money?

Then you should like andsarah channel's And Sarah videos on Youtube.

Writer-actor Sarah Dooley and director-cinematographer-editor Rachel Mersky (kokiriforest channel) are making mock documentary videos of a deliciously annoying character's college life.

The fictional Sarah, like The Office's Michael Scott, is arrogantly clueless. But she's master of her own reality. She wells over with so much denial that low-lying islands are at risk of submersion.

I won't spoil the best stuff, but watch in Episode 1 ("Sarah introduces her college life. Awkwardness ensues.") as Sarah waves and calls out to Allison, gets snubbed, and rationalizes that Allison must have thought she was waving to someone else—"also named Allison." Then in Episode 2 ("Sarah auditions for the Vagina Monologues!"), see Sarah get called on her lies by her beleaguered roommate, only to do an English-muffin reality reset.

So far there are only the two installments, but Episode 2 is the funniest thing I've ever seen on Youtube.

Episode 2 is funnier than the winner or any of the other nine finalists for the 2006 Youtube Video Awards: Best Comedy (compare for yourself). Enjoyable as many of those videos are, I got one laugh out of the winning video (Smosh Short 2: Stranded) and zero laughs out of the others.

I got two huge laughs out of And Sarah, Episode 2, from the deft writing, acting, and editing. That's, sadly, quite rare from what I've seen on Youtube over the last year. Watch it a second time just for the enjoyable characterization from facial expressions and body language.

Episode 1 is also very well done. I got smiles not laughs, but I loved the writing and acting (and the mockumentary style). You just want to shake the character Sarah and shout "What is WRONG with you?!" Yet somehow she's endearing.

I confess I have a personal interest in this. The real Sarah is a busy university student. But if many people subscribe and many more watch, she'll feel pressured to keep making videos for me and others to enjoy—instead of wasting her time learning, uh, learny stuff in schooliversity and junk.

The And Sarah show is worth checking out. Travel over to Youtube and subscribe to/bookmark andsarah channel, and bring friends along for the trip to mirth. Sarah will entertain you. But she can't help you get back your lunch money. That's a journey you must take alone.

Once again, Lake Superior State University (Michigan, USA) has released its annual playful banishment list.

2008 list of banished words (future link: http://www.lssu.edu/banished/archive/2008.php)

Observations:

• Perfect storm (a synergy of bad luck/bad decisions): I like it, but it has been overused.
• Webinar (World Wide Web seminar): It's inelegant. The only motivation for the blend is the same vowel sound in web and seminar. Can't we just call it a seminar?
• Organic: Over the last couple years, I've noticed that seemingly all actors now describe their movies as "evolving organically." How is this different from "evolving naturally"?
• Wordsmith and to Author: I like them, and they've been around since 1873 and 1596 (click on "2, transitive verb"), respectively. Write is better than author, but the latter gives you some variety.
• Random (as in "that's so random"): This has been vogue slang among teens for a few years at least. It seems to just mean "that's so odd" or "that's out of left field" or "Where did THAT come from?!" We'll see if it sticks around.

See also:
Making a meatball sundae of the grass station: The hip, overused and abused business buzzwords of 2007

And my post:
2007 'banished' words