Angela calls from Albany Township, Maine, because she’s puzzled by the slang she hears from younger professionals in her field. She designs wigs and styles hair for actors, and recently she’s heard them use the word eat in a new and different way. When she was growing up in the 1980s, she used the ate it to mean when someone took a fall or did a faceplant. Lately, though, she hears young theater professionals using the same phrase to mean something positive. If an actor or singer is doing well, they’ll say She ate! or She’s eating this choreography or She ate that song! or She’s eating! One also complimented her work with You ate that haircut! This sense of eat and ate has been around at least as far back as 2008. This is part of a complete episode.
When a British tabloid reporter writing about a crocodile attack needed a synonym for crocodile, he went with knobbly monster, now a joking term for similarly creative ways of avoiding repetition. Juliet and Matthew Maguire, described by The...
Sara in Camden, New Jersey, wants a word for those people who are more than acquaintances, but not quite friends. She calls them friendlies, but wonders if there’s a better term. Fracquaintance, maybe? The Danish band Mew has an album called...
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