Give It Up for the Winning Hollyword
Hollywood gives us stars and fashion - and "HollyWords." A look at some new catch phrases the entertainment world has given us this year:
The Top Ten Candidates
Wardrobe malfunction (Super Bowl) - From the Janet Jackson/ Justin Timberlake incident.
Bootylicious (Grammys) - A woman who has an abundance of adipose tissue in the gluteus maximus.
Extreme makeover - From various makeover shows, particularly the one of that name.
Gigli - New word for "really bad."
Give it up! ("American Idol") - Replaces the square "please applaud for "
Governator - The honorable governor of "CAH-lee-FOR-nee-ah."
Parley ("Pirates of the Caribbean") - From pirates' code of the brethren, where one cannot be harmed until one has an audience with the captain.
Snap ("Freaky Friday") - As in "Oh snap!," meaning "very cool."
Smiths ("The Matrix" sequels) - To lack individuality, like the multiduplicated Agent Smith.
Understated ("Lost in Translation") - The new synonym for "loser."
Bonus: Who are you wearing? (Various red-carpet shows) - For most of us, the answer is "Target" or "Madame Wal-Mart."
AND THE WINNER IS
Wardrobe malfunction.
The immortal words of pop star and disgraced Super Bowl costume assistant Justin Timberlake beat out "bootylicious" and "Gigli" to top this year's list of Hollywood contributions to the English language, according to The Global Language Monitor.
The Danville, Calif.-based group of "linguists, wordsmiths and language professors" makes its mission to track Tinseltown's generous, and frequent, gifts to the English language.
It's a job that grows harder every year, said Paul JJ Payack, president and "WordMan" for Global Language Monitor.
The Internet spreads "HollyWords" like lightning, Payack said.
"So when anything happens, it's magnified," he said.
The Monitor relies greatly on its network of "observers," the hip and observant Internet correspondents who let Payack know when "give it up" or "extreme makeover" make the big jump into the mainstream.
It wasn't hard to see "Gigli" coming. Payack did a little math on the opening weekend of the Ben Affleck-Jennifer Lopez box-office disaster and found the film was pulling in an average of two people per showing.
"Gigli" won a total of six Razzies, including worst picture, worst actress and worst actor.
Hence: "`Gigli,' `Gigli' bad," Payack said.
Not forever, because new words and phrases tend to come and go with the tides, although last year's winner, "embedded," is showing some staying power.
The next new word could be as close as the next awards show, although Payack said movies are a steady source of more colorful language.
Payack said there are more than 3,200 entries describing Bill Murray's performance in "Lost in Translation" as "understated."
That's good enough to earn the No. 10 spot on the list and crown "understated" as the new Hollywood word for "loser."
Because language never sleeps, Payack is already looking ahead. He thinks the projected $1 billion-plus earning potential for "The Passion of the Christ" makes "Aramaic" the word to watch.
"I think it's going to mean `bling-bling,'" he said.
