Words I'm Looking Up (One in an occasional, cleverly named series on words I'm looking up

teabagger

In a recent column on healthcare, Paul Krugman wrote that "the teabaggers have come and gone."

I've been hearing variations on this word a lot in the last few years, but not like that. Not like that at all.

Usually, the term is uttered by a Jon Stewart or a Seth Rogen and received by snickering twentysomethings privy to all kinds of filthy new figures of speech. I've resisted the temptation to look up the Stewart-Rogenesque form of the word because, well, I don't know. Maybe I'm getting too old for Beavis and Butthead humor. I certainly hope not.

But when a Princeton professor and New York Times columnist uses "teabagger," well, that lends some academic legitimacy to my search for truth.

But here's the thing: Neither Webster's New World online, American Heritage online, nor Merriam-Webster online contains an entry for "teabagger," nor for "teabag" or "tea bag" as a verb.

Which leaves readers like me with no better resource for understanding Krugman's comment than UrbanDictionary.com's definition of the verb "to teabag."

Hey, I wonder if there's an old Beavis and Butthead episode on ...

Wonderings and Googlings (Wherein I wonder about words, then I Google them)

douchebag = 1,920,000 hits
douche bag = 799,000 hits

If the Google search is any indication, the dictionaries are making the wrong call. Enter "douchebag" into dictionary.com (which includes American Heritage), Merriam-Webster's site, or Webster's New World College Dictionary's site, and they'll politely suggest "douche bag" instead.

Of all these dictionaries, only dictionary.com acknowledges that the term actually describes a type of bag. The others list it only as an insult or slang.

I love English.

Wonderings and Googlings (Wherein I wonder about words, then I Google them)

"I friended him." = 940 hits
"I befriended him." = 628 hits

A story this morning on NPR about Facebook got me wondering whether "friend" as a transitive verb was poised to replace the word that has long done its job: "befriend."

Looks like it is.

Words I'm Looking Up (One in an occasional cleverly named series on words I'm looking up)

jack

Specifically, I was looking for a definition to support the expression, "You don't know jack."

Webster's New World had a lot of definitions, including terms for playing cards, car lifts, electrical sockets, applejacks, male laborers, and even slang terms for money and saying, "Listen here, Jack." But not the definition I was looking for. Ditto that for Merriam-Webster online.

American Heritage, however, did have it. Its very last definition for the noun — definition No. 15 — is:

Slang. A small or worthless amount: You don't know jack about that.

Funny. I sometimes worry that dictionaries (especially you know who) are a little too hasty in adding new words. But on "jack" it feels to me that they're lagging behind. Of course, that's purely prejudicial and due to the fact that I use this form of "jack" so often. (I'm sassy like that.)

Silly Words I Can’t Do Without

dis — I realize this word isn’t silly for everyone, but when it’s coming out of a 40ish white woman — well, let’s just say it gets people primed for my crunk routine. I use this word so much that the copy editors at Penguin actually included it in the little style guide they made to edit my books.

schmutz — What else could you possibly have on your chin after eating the artichoke and spinach dip?

dude — I don't like it either. But this is California. It's the law.

bubkes — A word no comedy-minded nihilist can do without.

noggin — Someday, respectable folks will take back the word "head." But until then ...

Down With 'Down With'

In an old Simpsons episode, a group of feminist protesters marches in front of an ad agency, presumably protesting some chauvinistic ad campaign. The women are carrying signs and chanting, "Down with sexism! Down with sexism!" In what turns out to be a spoof beer commercial, some construction workers spray them with beer and they turn into giggling bikini party girls. (So like life, those Simpsons.)

This well-known usage of "down with" appears in Webster's New World College Dictionary, curiously flush with exclamation points:

down with! overthrow! do away with!

Yet the online version of the American Heritage Dictionary also lists that other, hipper version of "down with":

Slang. Having knowledge of; aware; "He was not, I detected, 'down with the revolution'" (Clarence Page).

And urbandictionary.com reports the next phase of this term's evolution:

down wit dat: to be in agreement

And here we have yet another example of why native English speakers should go easy on anyone trying to learn this language: The protesters who were originally "down with!" sexism changed their minds and instead became "down with" sexism.