Double-Tongued Dictionary Recent Citations

Citation Queue These are recently added citations for catchwords that have not yet been researched or incorporated into a full dictionary entry. There is also a date-sorted archive which includes all citations, whether used in a full entry or not, as well as the full entries themselves.

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humbum n. Is there anybody left who knows about humbums from the Depression days?…Maybe it was two words: hum bums?…They were kind of like fritters, made of selvage bread-dough pieces and plopped into hot oil. There they sizzled, expanded, turned reddish-brown.…You could slaver them with butter or powdered sugar or jam.…Humbums were yumptious.…My lineage is part French, so maybe it’s a French thing? I have fancied an etymology from hommes bonnes. They often ended up looking like little fat men. (Feb. 15, 2005) [full citation…]

catalog musical n. It highlights the challenges faced by writers of so-called catalog, or jukebox, musicals, an increasingly popular form of show in which a new story is woven around existing hit songs. (Feb. 14, 2005) [full citation…]

slippage n. Then there’s what the industry calls “slippage”—the percentage of people who get a check and forget to cash it. (Feb. 14, 2005) [full citation…]

aquaceuticals n. Aquaceuticals is the H2O buzz word in the United States, where bottled water is “re-mineralised.” This new type of water is also known as a “functional food” because it claims to be therapeutic (calcium-enriched water, for example, is marketed as being beneficial to the elderly). (Feb. 14, 2005) [full citation…]

PRA n. The Bush administration is taking great pains to call for “personal retirement accounts” (PRAs will soon enter the lexicon). (Feb. 14, 2005) [full citation…]

K n. After about three times, the officer said “he told me about one gun, an AK 47,” which he said the man referred to as “the K.” (Feb. 14, 2005) [full citation…]

stuffer n. The European record for a so-called “stuffer’‘, a courier who conceals drugs inside their body, is credited to a trafficker in England who grimly held out for 38 days before giving into the forces of nature. (Feb. 14, 2005) [full citation…]

safety v. Through the years, I have heard a cashier announce that she will “safety” some cash for the day; a technician state that he will “safety” some equipment; and so on. By deduction, I discovered that the adjective “safety” had been transmogrified into a verb meaning to keep, perhaps hide—but not necessarily from harm. (Feb. 14, 2005) [full citation…]

crash v. I learned that when one makes a mistake in filling up an application form, one need not cross out the mistake. Instead, one must crash it out. Rather violent but the result is the same, I guess. (Feb. 14, 2005) [full citation…]

crash hour n. Eight in the morning and five in the afternoon during weekdays when traffic in the city attempts to compete with that of Manila’s is not called rush hour. It is called crash hour. Another subliminal vicious tendency. (Feb. 14, 2005) [full citation…]

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