On the radar: “Bent”

I first became aware of bent as referring to something other than physical crookedness in 1980, when Martin Sherman’s play “Bent” (starring Richard Gere) opened on Broadway, and reviews explained that the title was a Britishism connoting homosexuality. I subsequently learned that it’s also a British adjective meaning crooked in the sense of dishonest or corrupt.

But I didn’t know which sense was meant in today’s New York Times article about the NBC comedy “Community.” The piece had a quote from Jim Rash, and described him as the actor “who plays the bent Dean Pelton on the show.”

To find out, I could have called up my daughter Elizabeth Yagoda, who loves “Community.” But clicking over to Wikipedia was easier. There I read that Dean Pelton

seemingly has a crush on Jeff, and uses him to improve the school’s fledgling extra-curricular programs, pressuring him to join the debate team, edit the school’s newspaper, and convince Troy to play quarterback for the football team. Among other hints at sexual proclivities such as late-night visits to truck stops and public restrooms, he has had a growing fetish for people in dalmatian costumes, which he believes he has pursued in secrecy, but seems to be common enough knowledge to the students and faculty.

So there you have it.

“Well played, sir!”

It has been suggested to me that this all-but-inescapable online bro-phrase is a NOOB, and after some investigation, I believe it. On the British origin, I give you “Well played”, or, The major’s dilemma, a 1894 farce by Arthur Francis Knight. There is a 1921 book called Well Played! by Andrew Home (also the author of From Fag to Monitor: or, Fighting to the Front). Then there is this from Shane Leslie’s 1922 The Oppidan:

As each member of his team came through he cast him a faithful look or a winged word, ‘Well played! You deserved to win and you will win next time.’ He stood there seeing his boys through the bitterness of a defeat which had hit himself hardest. Spectators passed him sympathetically. Morleyites seeing the symbol of the vanquished nudged each other and began rubbing in the defeat. ‘Well played, Morley’s! Morley’s! Morley’s! a goal to a rouge.’ There was a curiosity to see the visible effect. But nothing was there revealed except the well known accent of Jenkinson saying to the dishevelled players, ‘Well played Mr Morley’s, very well played indeed!’

As for American use, it’s everywhere, not only in gaming message boards but, for example, in this Dave Itzkoff post for Arts Beat blog of the New York Times. (He’s describing Betty White talking to Jay Leno about her experience on “Saturday Night Live.”)

Ms. White says, “Somebody grabs your hand, and you’re out horizontal back here, and they take you into something, a room smaller than this desk, and somebody’s taking your clothes off and somebody’s putting them back on——”

“No,” Mr. Leno says, interrupting. “I didn’t ask you how you got the job.”

Well played, Mr. Leno. Well played.

 

 

 

 

A key figure in U.S. adoption of the phrase appears to be Seth Rogen, who said it first in the 2008 “The 40-Year-Old Virgin” and then in “Knocked Up” (the clip below), after being told that he was looks like “Babe Ruth’s gay brother … Gabe Ruth.”

Rogen’s signal contribution may have been ending with the word “sir.” JakeinSD posted an Urban Dictionary definition of “Well played my friend” in January 2008–that is before the release of “40 Year-Old Virgin”:

a statement of extreme agreement/praise for a particular activity that one of your friends has engaged in. can also be used sarcastically to point out a flaw in logic or action (example. when something is not well played, but you say it was in a sarcastic tone).
dude 1: did you get that girls number last night?
dude 2: not only did i get her number, i boned her and didn’t call her.
dude 1: well played my friend!

Clearly, more research is needed.

“Top Oneself”

Jeremy: still "Lin" good health

My intrepid spotter Ellen Magenheim wrote me a couple of weeks ago:

I noticed this morning in the Times that the headline above the story about Jeremy Lin’s latest performance was “Lin Tops Himself” and it briefly took my breath away since my mind went first to the British meaning (i.e., commit suicide) rather than the American meaning. As I thought about it, I wondered if the International Herald Tribune had a different headline–which it did–and then went back to the digital version of the NYT to find that it didn’t have the “Tops Himself” version either. Do you think none of this variation means anything or do you think maybe it dawned on someone about the unfortunate transatlantic ambiguity?

Sure enough, the article she was referring to–about a New York Knicks basketball player who for a time was a U.S. sporting sensation–had in the online N.Y. Times the headline “Lin Puts Knicks Back on Track.” At the very bottom of the article, in small gray print, are these words:

A version of this article appeared in print on February 20, 2012, on page D1 of the New York edition with the headline: Lin Tops Himself.

 

Often articles will have different headlines in print and online versions. But it’s amusing to think of some subeditor noting the unfortunate double meaning and stopping the presses to change it. I don’t suppose we’ll ever know. Unless, of course, the New York Times sports desk reads Not One-Off Britishisms and wouldn’t mind filling us in!

“Randy”

Powers is permanently randy

Whenever I read the word randy (quoth the OED: “orig. Sc. and Eng. regional. Lustful; eager for sexual gratification; sexually aroused. [Now the usual sense.]”), my mind’s eye and ear  instantly visualize Austin Powers in full leer: “Feeling randy? Fancy a shag?” Then I start visualizing Brits “‘avin’ a laff” about all the Americans with names like Randy Newman, Randy Travis, and Randy Moss.

This has been happening more and more lately, most recently last night as I was reading a Jonah Lehrer article in the New Yorker in which he mused about the odd behavior of male Australian gray-crowned babblers: “Instead of acting like randy juveniles, seeking out mates and getting into territorial fights, they are content to remain at home.”

But it’s not just The New Yorker, as witness:

“In the Mood,” a new song and a strong indication of where New Edition is likely to go next, was a randy, simmering seduction anthem. (Newark Star Ledger, February 21, 2012)

Seth [the Justin Theroux character in the film “Wanderlust”] suggests a cross between Charles Manson and a randy hobbit. (Boston Herald, February 23, 2011)

The only conceivable response is:

“Yeah, baby.”

“Loo”

I first presented this “U”-phemism–first cited by the OED, appropriately, in a 1940 Nancy Mitford quote–as a Portland, Oregon, outlier, but I now believe it’s made the grade as a NOOB. The Google Ngram chart, below, shows a more than 50 percent increase in U.S. use between 200o and 2008:

Then there are these recent quotes:

I saw Another Happy Day, and thought you really brought it home playing the bitch ex stripper, coke-whore mom — nearly spitting nails with every word catapulted at your co-star, Ellen Barkin. That cat fight in the loo alone was worth the price of admission (“An Oscar-Themed Open Letter to Demi Moore,” Huffington Post, February 28, 2102)

SUSPECTED PEEPING TOM HITS CAMPUS LOO (Coast Report Online, Costa Mesa, Cal., February 21, 2012)

…it’s no longer the morning news that dad is reading on the loo, but rather a tablet computer. (Consumer Reports.org, February 17, 2012)

I can’t top that, so, like George Costanza and Mitt Romney, I will just say:

Gotta go!

No pun intended.

“Sport”

I know Michael Sokolove. Michael Sokolove is a friend of mine. I have not served in the Senate with Michael Sokolove, but I have broken bread with him and played basketball with him and happen to know he hails from Lower Bucks County, Pennsylvania. And so I was surprised to read him say–in a Q and A  at the New York Times website regarding his excellent recent article about Oscar Pistorius:

One of the great things about sport is that it is in some ways primitive, or we want to imagine it is.

The surprising thing was that he said sport, a Britishism, rather than the American sports. (We do, however, refer to baseball as a sport and to a person asa good sport.)I asked him about it and he blamed it on his English son-in-law.

But Sokolove is not alone. Times columnist David Brooks, theorizing on the Jeremy Lin phenomenon, recently wrote:

The moral ethos of sport is in tension with the moral ethos of faith, whether Jewish, Christian or Muslim. The moral universe of modern sport is oriented around victory and supremacy.

A headline in the Philadelphia Inquirer late last year read: “Money, not sport, the name of the game.” And a while back, Slate had this one: “Politics and sport: a dangerous mix.”

The next thing you know, we’ll be talking about maths.

“Ginger” Fail

Jennings

@KenJennings of Jeopardy fame tweets:

What is going on where we are suddenly calling redheads “gingers”? People, we won the Revolutionary War, we don’t have to put up with this.

Hey, Ken, you may be the king of all trivia but you have to brush up your NOOBs: Ginger is the second most all-time most popular entry on this blog. (FYI, bits is first and wanker is third.) You and any other interested party can sort out what’s going on with ginger here.

“Hang on!”

The phrasal verb has assorted meanings, most of them common to both British and American English: retain (“he hung on to his mother’s jewelry”), refrain from telephonically hanging up (Blondie’s “hanging on the tel-e-phone”), and remain clinging (the Supremes’ “you keep me hangin’ on”).

That leaves hang on is an imperative verb, metaphorically requesting or demanding a time out. The American equivalents are wait (a minute) or hold on (a minute);  the OED quotes an 1841 dictionary of Americanisms describing the latter as “originally a sea phrase.” The OED’s first citation for this hang on is a surprisingly late definition in a 1941 dictionary of Australian (!) slang. But now it is  so much a Britishism that I can’t even say it in my head other than in my lame British accent (believe me, you don’t want to hear).

All the more reason why the American chattering classes seem to be lapping it up:

... spelling out that members of Congress shouldn’t use non-public information gained through their jobs to line their pockets? As Financial Services Committee Chairman Spencer Bachus allegedly did, according to a 60 Minutes investigation? That’s more in the category of hang on, I can’t believe this is not already against the rules. (Andrew Rosenthal, New York Times, January 27, 2012)

Scientology appears to be giving you the promise of a better knowledge of God, perhaps an attractive prospect for youngsters who might be feeling that more mainstream organized religion leaves them cold. But hang on a minute. What “god” do Scientologists believe in? (Villagevoice.com, February 7, 2012)

Milestone

Not One-Off Britishisms is one year and one day old, so happy belated birthday to me!

The very first post (on advert) has been followed by 142 more; there have been 686 comments and 79,492 page views. Massive attention has been paid, to which I say, “Cheers!” (a word that so far on these shores is seen only as a drinks salutation and e-mail closing, not as a substitute for thank you. Give it time).

Unaccountably, new NOOBs keep turning up, so I will carry on for a while. Talking of that, my next post will be on turn up (as a substitute for show up) and the one after that on talking of (speaking of).

The