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

Comentários

Enviar um comentário

Mensagens populares deste blogue

It's all Greek to me ;-D

Imagem
Stephen Halliwell GREEK LAUGHTER A study of cultural psychology from Homer to early Christianity In the third century BC, when Roman ambassadors were negotiating with the Greek city of Tarentum, an ill-judged laugh put paid to any hope of peace. Ancient writers disagree about the exact cause of the mirth, but they agree that Greek laughter was the final straw in driving the Romans to war. One account points the finger at the bad Greek of the leading Roman ambassador, Postumius. It was so ungrammatical and strangely accented that the Tarentines could not conceal their amusement. The historian Dio Cassius, by contrast, laid the blame on the Romans’ national dress. “So far from receiving them decently”, he wrote, “the Tarentines laughed at the Roman toga among other things. It was the city garb, which we use in the Forum. And the envoys had put this on, whether to make a suitably dignified impression or out of fear – thinking that it would make the Tarentines respect them. But in fact g...
Ler mais

The Pill, a short history

Imagem
( this in Britain ) It was the first lifestyle drug, launched against fierce opposition from the moral right, which revolutionised social and sexual attitudes and helped define the 1960s. Now, almost 50 years on, it is to be made available over the counter without a prescription. Another milestone in the history of the contraceptive pill was signalled last week with the disclosure that, from the New Year, pilot schemes in two south-London primary care trusts, Southwark and Lambeth, will, for the first time, allow pharmacists and nurses to provide it to women over the age of 16. The aim is to test whether making the Pill more easily accessible reduces unwanted pregnancies. Pharmacies are open for longer hours than GP surgeries and do not require an appointment or have long waits. The Family Planning Association said that it received scores of calls from women who had run out of the Pill and didn't know where to go to rep...
Ler mais