Bought in Camden Market:

Pink Floyd and The Committee



At this DVD shop, The Video Junction :)


Now, let's have a Word of the Day moment here, from the DVD blurb:

wife beater (shirt)

Just about everyone under thirty has heard this nasty little bit of slang, and we've all asked "how?!" and "why?!?" The term first cropped up a few years ago, with the first written citation dating from 1996, just as the sleeveless athletic shirts were making their fashion comeback.

The slang seems to have come from a healthy sense of self-mockery, as teens across the nation slipped into something comfortable, looked at themselves in the mirror, and said "Ughh. I look like someone you would see drinking and belching and smacking his wife on Cops." Quite a few forays into the etymology of wife beater also mention Stanley Kowalski (from A Streetcar Named Desire) or Ralph Kramden (from TV's The Honeymooners).

The name wife beater is growing more and more popular, raising the concerns of many victims' rights groups that naming a popular article of clothing after an incident of domestic violence desensitizes young people to violence against women. However, many slang experts argue that, far from glamorizing domestic violence, this tongue-in-cheek name mocks the self-conscious machismo of the upper-class teen as he struggles to evoke the blue-collar image of another time and place.

Both the fashion trend and the nomenclature seem to have settled in for an extended stay, but I wouldn't get too comfortable with either. Whatever reason you may have for talking about 'beaters, or (gasp!) wearing them, you may expect some flak. Maybe it's time to embrace a new trend. You know, I hear they are making capri pants for men this season.

From Random House's own WOTD