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The Oxford Dictionaries, publisher of the venerable Oxford English
Dictionary, has chosen youthquake as
its word of the year. I suppose I might as well confess that I have never seen
or heard this word before—even though it was allegedly coined in the 1960s by
none other than Diana Vreeland, editor of Vogue
magazine.
Youthquake’s self-evident
definition is “significant cultural, political or social change arising from
the actions of young people.” Its equally self-evident etymology is from the
words youth and earthquake.
While I’m on the subject, I might as well also confess that the runner-up
words that the Oxford editors considered are also, for the most part, equally
unknown to me: Those words are antifa,
broflake, newsjacking, white fragility, gorpcore, kompromat, Milkshake Duck, and unicorn.
Okay, I know about the radical leftist antifa (or anti-fascist) movement,
especially with respect to its agitation against Confederate monuments. And of
course I’m familiar with unicorns—I
see them all the time—although I gather the word must have some more
contemporary meaning to have been selected by the Oxford folks.
But broflake? Gorpcore? Milkshake duck?
These are total strangers to my vocabulary. Who on earth uses these
terms and what in blue blazes do they mean?
Well, for the benefit of those few of you who are as ignorant as I am of
modern slang, here’s a quick glossary.
Broflake – a notably macho male
who is easily offended, especially by liberal social reform.
Newsjacking – the art of subtly
twisting a news item into a commercial plug or an endorsement of a point of
view.
White fragility – discomfort by a
white person when confronted with facts about racial injustice
Gorpcore – fashion design
influenced by outdoors style, such as fleecy jackets, fannypacks, puffy
sleeves, etc. “Gorp” is a kind of
trail food composed of granola, oats, raisins, and peanuts.
Kompromat – from a Russian
portmanteau word meaning “compromising material” – damaging information used
for blackmail or negative publicity of a public figure.
Milkshake duck – an internet meme consisting of a duck who can drink a
milkshake, but who is later revealed to be a racist. It now refers to anyone with feet of clay—originally
enthusiastically praised but later found to have an unsavory side.
Unicorn – in its current sense,
any product (especially food or drink) marketed in rainbow colors or decorated
with glittery effects.
The Bard of Buffalo Bayou and I are still trying to cope with the words of
earlier years—like “swell,” “whoopee,” “the bees’ knees,” and “chuckaboo.” Take that, Oxford Dictionaries!
New
words are a pain,
They’re
all so ephemeral.
They
just clutter my brain.
I’d
rather take Demerol.
I’ve always been fascinated by business entities—mostly law offices,
financial firms, and advertising agencies—whose names are a list of the
principal partners. Such names have always possessed a certain poetry for me,
and I loved to recite them aloud. The classic, which I came across in my
childhood, was Batten, Barton, Durstine & Osborne—an ad agency whose name
the comedian Fred Allen famously said “sounds like a trunk falling downstairs.”
Nowadays, the firm usually goes by BBD&O, which has much less romance to
it.
Merrill, Lynch, Pierce, Fenner, and Beane was another wonderfully named
company, until Smith replaced Beane, and eventually it became known simply as
Merrill Lynch, and was then gobbled up by Bank of America.
Law firms are prime examples of polynominalism. Among the best are Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton &
Garrison; Akin, Gump, Strauss, Hauer & Feld; and Skadden, Arps, Slate,
Meagher & Flom.
Accountants were no slouches in the multiple-name department. Touche, Ross,
Bailey & Smart led the pack, followed by Lybrand, Ross Bros. &
Montgomery; Deloitte, Haskins & Sells; and Peat, Marwick & Mitchell. Mergers
have destroyed the magic, and now instead we have plain old Deloitte or a
monstrosity like KPMG. For shame!
Growing up in Houston, I was entranced by the names of law firms such as
Vinson, Elkins, Weems & Searls (later either Connally or Smith was added);
Fulbright, Crooker, Freeman & Bates (later plus Jaworski); Baker, Botts,
Andrews, Shepherd & Coates; Andrews, Kurth, Campbell & Bradley (later
plus Jones); and Butler, Binion,
Rice, Cook & Knapp. When
switchboard operators answered the phone “Butler Binion,” it always sounded to
me as if they were saying “Butter beans.”
My alltime favorite, which managed to squeeze six partners’ names into the
title, was Hill, Brown, Kronzer, Abraham, Watkins & Steely.
The Houston ad agency of Goodwin, Dannenbaum, Littman & Wingfield was
also a gem, too often shortened in common parlance to GDL&W.
When I was an alleged student of philosophy at The Rice Institute way back
when, our textbook had a chapter on German philosophers, several of whom I
thought should have gotten together and formed a firm. It would have been
called Schlegel, Schelling, Schiller, Schopenhauer, and Schleiermacher. Now
that’s poetry!
Poetry is an alien term to the Bard of Buffalo Bayou, whose verbiage is
something else—although no one knows quite what.
Trump,
McConnell, Ryan, & Pence,
All,
by repute, Republican gents,
Were
first against Moore,
Then
said they were for--
But
wished they could stay on the fence.
