vuzvuz
n.— «I have a new favorite word. It’s slang, but not (as it was explained to me, though it’d be useful to know if someone else out there disagrees) derogatory, for an Ashkenazi* person. The word is “vuzvuz,” ie “That vuzvuz over there by the bus stop…” Why that word, you might ask? Because the Askenazim always asking, “Vus is dis? Vus is dat?” I’m not kidding. That’s really the reason.» —“Today’s Hebrew Lesson” by Danya Jerusalem Syndrome Jan. 29, 2005. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)
Further reading
It was a dark and stormy night. So begins the long and increasingly convoluted prose of Edwards Bulwer-Lytton’s best-known novel. Today the annual Bulwer-Lytton Contest asks contestants for fanciful first sentences that are similarly...
How do social media algorithms shape the way we communicate? A new book argues that the competition for clicks is changing the way we speak and write, from the so-called “YouTube accent” to the surprising evolution of the word preppy. Also: A...