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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L n. The other day I blogged some of the words to a song called “Must Be the Money” by a rap group called Nelly. The verse is…”If you want to go take a ride with me, smoke an L in the back of my Benz-y…”…An “L” is an El Producto cigar. They were smoking El Producto cigars in the back of the Benz-y. I was so happy. Now I know what an “L” is and I don’t want to smoke one. (Jan. 17, 2005) [full citation…]

moby n. Surprisingly, the word “moby”—for a mobile phone—could be found in none of the dictionaries in the OneLook site. (Jan. 17, 2005) [full citation…]

choppy adj. The market was, as they say, “choppy.” Now we had best get definitions sorted out: some people use the word “choppy” to mean “not nice”…as in “Sure, she may look terrific, but her manners are pretty choppy.” In trading parlance a “choppy” market isn’t necessarily “not nice,” it’s often just boring. (Last night is another matter—it got, as we say, chopped to pieces). Choppy in this context just means “not prepared to go anywhere in any sort of hurry.” (Jan. 17, 2005) [full citation…]

high speed, low drag adj. “High speed, low drag” (either a soldier who is extrordinaily proficient at his job or—when used derisively—one who is extraordinarily the opposate). (Jan. 17, 2005) [full citation…]

detail ranger n. I have spent this week at Victory as as what they call a “Detail Ranger.” Which is to say that, whenever one comes up I become extremely hard to find and blend into my surroundings. (Jan. 17, 2005) [full citation…]

leg n. For those that still have all their marbles a “leg” is any soldier who isn’t Airborne. As opposed to the soldiers who work in finance and personel, who I like to refer to as “chairborne”). (Jan. 17, 2005) [full citation…]

bills n.pl. When I was growing up back over there on Merseyside, we didn’t really go in for rhyming slang. However, one term was in common parlance yet I rarely find anyone from outside the Liverpool area who’s familiar with it. It is, to my knowledge, the only example of scouse rhyming slang. “Bills,” meaning underpants: “Bill Grundys.”…it was the 1980s and 90s when me and my mates were using the term “bills.” The small minority of us who knew who Bill Grundy was only knew it from punk history, we were all too young to actually remember him from the Sex Pistols incident, and we’d never heard of him being anywhere else. Yet there we all were, using “bills” and “billies” without even consciously thinking of it as slang. (Jan. 17, 2005) [full citation…]

creeper n. But on board now of course are also those newish ladies and gentlemen who are sometimes referred to as “creepers.” In the ancient game of “You go down, I go up,” they see themselves as inheritors who will have earned their pedestals by “struggling” for the President in his later years. Where Museveni’s old buddies (or “historicals”) slept in mosquito and snake-infested bushes and risked their lives smuggling guns, messages and cash and killing Obote’s soldiers, the creepers must also be seen to measure up to the rough life. It is well and good if a creeper can jump smartly across a mud-pool on the campaign trail, but it would be much better if he rolls in the mud to cross the pool. (Jan. 17, 2005) [full citation…]

historical n. But on board now of course are also those newish ladies and gentlemen who are sometimes referred to as “creepers.” In the ancient game of “You go down, I go up,” they see themselves as inheritors who will have earned their pedestals by “struggling” for the President in his later years. Where Museveni’s old buddies (or “historicals”) slept in mosquito and snake-infested bushes and risked their lives smuggling guns, messages and cash and killing Obote’s soldiers, the creepers must also be seen to measure up to the rough life. It is well and good if a creeper can jump smartly across a mud-pool on the campaign trail, but it would be much better if he rolls in the mud to cross the pool. (Jan. 17, 2005) [full citation…]

olectronics n. Consumers may soon have to learn a new word—“olectronics”—when buying electronic products now a scientific breakthrough has added new features to lamps and cell phones. The first letter “o” in the word is borrowed from “organic”—materials such as plastic, previously believed to act only as an insulator. But three 2000 Noble laureates in chemistry changed that, discovering a way to make organic materials act like metal. (Jan. 17, 2005) [full citation…]

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