The Lexicographer's Rules

My latest slang column in the Malaysia Star explores some new-found slang.

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Over the past few weeks in this space, I’ve shared old slang with you, but now it’s time to look at more recent slang, slang so new it has yet to prove that it will endure. 

From The Independent in London comes a bit of military slang that’s a head-scratcher (a puzzle) at first.  

In December, Jerome Starkey wrote, “Heat-seeking Javelin rockets designed to hit T72 tanks tearing across Europe are very good at finding insurgents cowering in compounds. Marines call it ‘throwing a Porsche at them’, because the missiles cost 65,000 a pop.” 

The expression throw a Porsche at someone has one of the hallmarks of slang: a bit of humour. Of course, the British soldiers are not actually tossing an expensive sports car at the enemy. They are, however, firing missiles that cost just about as much as a high-end sports car such as a Porsche. The slang comes about via metaphor. 

By the way, to say something costs a certain amount of money a pop, means it costs that much for every single one that you buy. You could also say, “Every time I ride the bus, it costs me two dollars a pop.” 

Another metaphor was used to invent the expression Q-tip cruise. This one takes a bit of unpacking (that is, explaining) in order to make it comprehensible.  

Q-tip is a brand name of a type of short stick that has very small tufts of white cotton on the end. They’re sold mainly in North America and are used for putting on make-up, daubing wounds with antiseptic, or cleaning out your ears (although the official advice is not to use them that way because you could do damage to your ear drums). 

The Q is capitalised because “Q-tip” is a proper noun, although it is close to becoming generic in the United States, the same way that the brand name Kleenex is now widely used to mean any tissue paper on which you can blow your nose. The existing generic name of the Q-tip product is “cotton swab.”  

Cruise in Q-tip cruise refers to a pleasure trip aboard a large ship.  

Now, the metaphor comes into play because many of the passengers on Q-tip cruises are senior citizens or just seniors. That is, old people who have white hair that resembles the cotton on the ends of Q-tips. 

Here’s another bit of new slang: to swede. Sweding is a particularly interesting word from a new movie called Be Kind, Rewind. Created by French filmmaker Michael Gondry, the plot revolves around two men who work at a video rental store in which all of the videotapes of movies are accidentally erased.  

So the two men decide to swede the movies themselves, meaning to re-make all of the movies with a home video camera and the barest of props and plots. In use outside of the movie, Gondry and the website for Be Kind, Rewind say that to swede a movie is to insert yourself into it, to make yourself a part of the action. 

Another bit of new slang is to jock. It means to steal, or, in other slang, to bite. Bite and jock are especially used this way on the Internet, where they might be used in sentences like, “Don’t jock my pages!” or “He didn’t write that! He bit it from me.” 

In politics, a slang term that has caught my attention is hispandering. It, too, requires some unpacking before it’s easy to understand.  

First, it’s a blend of the words Hispanic and pandering. Hispanic is an adjective that refers to people from Latin America. In this case, because hispandering is a political term, it more specifically refers to illegal Spanish-speaking immigrants. 

Pandering isn’t slang, but instead is a long-standing English word meaning to give in to the wishes or desires of someone else, especially when those wishes or desires are vulgar or common. It comes from Chaucer’s play Troilus and Criseyde with help from Shakespeare’s version, Troilus and Cressida. 

Where these two words come together is in the middle of the debate over illegal immigration in the United States. Some Americans believe the country should grant amnesty—a period during which the immigration law will not be enforced—to illegal immigrants who have shown that they are hard workers and taxpayers, especially if they have children, since any child born in the United States has the right to be an American citizen, even if their parents are not. 

Those people who disagree with the idea of amnesty, therefore, believe politicians who do support it are pandering in order to get more votes from people who think the amnesty is a good idea. Voilà, Hispandering. 

Regarding this point: “Pandering . . . is a long-standing English word meaning to give in to the wishes or desires of someone else, especially when those wishes or desires are vulgar or common.”

Beg pardon, but I think this definition is inexact in some crucial ways. First, “pandering” is used for the act of apparently agreeing with the ideas or prejudices of others when you don’t actually respect those ideas or prejudices as all. There is not necessarily any “giving in,” because that doesn’t apply unless you were actively against the idea, earlier--and, just as importantly, “pandering” doesn’t require any action at all. After all, it’s most commonly used in relation to purely verbal or symbolic contexts (i.e., political speechmaking, or social conversation). 

Second, another key point omitted from your definition--though supplied in your example--is that “pandering” is done in order to win favor with those you’re apparently agreeing with; and the usual implied corollary is that you do not in fact agree at all.

Finally, “vulgar” or “common” doesn’t seem to enter into this at all, not even “especially;” currying favor is the issue, whether with the crowd or with the upper classes. If you’re in the home of the rich and/or the powerful, and you express agreement with your hosts’ ideas simply in order to have them like you, then you’re pandering.

Brad, I think that nuance *can* be there in “pander” but I don’t think it *has* to be there. I’ve just taken a look at the New Oxford American Dictionary, Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate, and the Collins English Dictionary and none of them include that as part of their definitions. Their relevant senses:

NOAD: gratify or indulge (an immoral or distasteful desire, need, or habit or a person with such a desire, etc.).

MW: to provide gratification for others’ desires.

Collins: to give gratification (to weaknesses or or desires).

However, I could see how it might have been better to write “cater to” instead of “give in to.”

Thanks for this reply and the research, and the verb “cater to"--which does seem the appropriate one (and includes both words and actions). Indeed, its implications are much better than the dictionaries’ concepts, as paraphrased, which do seem oddly incomplete to me--though in checking with Collins online, I see “indulge,” which is on the right track. But only NOAD includes the concept that the desires being catered to must be immoral or distasteful, which seems absolutely essential to the definition. (The other two wordings, as phrased, would evidently include neutral desires; and could thus apply to a person establishing a monastery to gratify the desire of some to become monks. But I assume that should not be called “pandering.") And all three definitions seem to omit the point that pandering must be done in order to win favor or for gain. That, too, seems an essential part of the word.

It’s a pejorative to be sure. “He deftly pandered to his Christian Right constituents,” implies something immoral, even though the object of the pandering may be claiming perceived moral high ground.

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