And that's what I like about the South

The Peachoid water tower, Gaffney, South Carolina
Wikimedia Commons, CC0

So a few of my colleagues went to Atlanta, Georgia, recently for a conference. Since then I've been asking them about their trip, particularly related to food and language usage, two of my favorite themes.

For example,

Colleague #1: "I was talking with this native Atlantian ... is that what you call someone from Atlanta?"

Me: "Atlantan. They're not from Atlantis, they're from Atlanta. You could also say, 'Yew from Lanuh?' This is another acceptable way to refer to someone from Atlanta."

Colleague #2: "We went to this restaurant featuring traditional Southern foods ..."

Me (inside my head): *You found a place that serves Moon Pies and Sun Drop?!*

Colleague #2: "I tried the cornbread. I must say it was rather dry ..."

Me: "Then it's the real deal. If it takes sweet, then that's just cake, also known as Yankee cornbread."

Colleague #2: "But they gave us this little dipping sauce ..."

Me (inside my head): *WTF?*

Colleague #2: "It was like a broth. They said it was made from vegetables. They cook the vegetables in this broth and then use the broth ..."

Me: "Pot likker. You mean pot likker."

Colleague #2: "Yes! That's it! They said it was called 'pot liquor.'"

Me: "So you were with our vegetarian colleague at this restaurant? And she had some of the pot likker?"

Colleague #2: "Yes."

Me: "Did anyone mention to her that pot likker is likely not vegetarian? If it's done authentically, then the vegetables are cooked with bacon, fat back, salt pork, bacon grease, something with meat. It's definitely not vegetarian."

Colleague #2: "She wondered."

Bilingual fail

"Chignon" and "chingón" are not the same thing.

Portmanteau du jour

New Yorkers + New Jerseyan = New Jerkers.

You're welcome, world.

Sorry, I'm feeling for everyone in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy (been there, done that, didn't have electricity for a week), but maybe I've heard a little too much from Staten Island over the past few days . . .

WTF FTW

I am old. I'm starting to feel like one of those parents that kids make fun of for not getting internet memes or text abbreviations. For example, "LOL" means "laughing out loud," not "lots of love." "ROFL" means "rolling on the floor laughing," not a quick way to refer to the massage/body work term, "rolfing."

 These I get.

However, I only recently learned that "FTW" stands for "for the win," rather than a transposition of "WTF,"  aka "What the f**k."

I feel slightly less stoopid now that I know the real meaning, but I think my original interpretation was actually better. 

"F**k the what, dudes, it's only Thursday! This week will never end." 

See? Very useful.

I still don't get what a "meme" is, though. WTF?

Old.

 

Sure plays a mean pinball

Pinball flippers by ElHeineken, Wikimedia Commons

Min Gud, I love Radio Sweden. This was one of their features on today's (3 January 2012) broadcast, a segment on new words added to the Swedish language during 2011.

"Pinball parent" is pretty cute--and I'm oddly comforted to know that the "flipper" form of parenting isn't limited to the U.S. Really, it sounds like the lazy-assed manager approach to child-rearing, so I just assumed it was American, yet another "gift" from our MBA glut.

There are some other goodies, but my favorite has to be one of the terms mentioned in the podcast, "attitude incontinence," which refers to the phenomenon of someone rather too generously sharing their opinions about everything with everyone all the time.

It sounds so much classier than "diarrhea of the mouth," inte det?

Ja, it does.