Friday fluff: Amateur lexicography
2009 May 15
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Okay, I am in no way promising that this will happen soon, but it occured to me that, what with how hilarious y’all are, and how attention to The Book is getting us new readers, we might be in need of a blog lexicon for our shorthand, jokes, etc. Some of them are used all the time (baby donuts, natch), where others are more topic-specific (like Chili’s anecdotes).
It seemed like a great idea that would take too much time to execute until Resident Thin Scientist Volcanista helpfully suggested that we could farm it out to you all! Only she put it more nicely. So, Shapelings, help us out: what should go in a Shapeling Dictionary? Bonus points if you can link to the original instance of any given phrase!
To start with the basics, “FA” threw me for a while.
I knew I’d think of another one as soon as I posted. “HAES” mystified me for a little while, too.
The Fantasy of Being Thin, and its abbreviation.
“Tiny pants”.
Being Fat at someone
THE OBESITY EPIDEIMIC BOOGA BOOGA BOOGA!
Coconut Crabs
Those are some of my faves. :)
OH GOD COCONUT CRABS
Noooooooo we can’t include coconut crabs! People will be scared away!! I WILL BE SCARED AWAY
Also, some obvious ones were already on t-shirts, like I am Kate Harding, etc. And Tiny Pants!
I have already referred to sharpened babies once today!
“Death fat,” with attribution, since it apparently flummoxed Newsweek.
Lol your fat!
Can we please include Giant Phantom Schlong Dude? Please?
Baby donuts, of course ;)
Ahaarrr and avast ye! Surprise me cunt!
teh fatz? I love teh fatz. I guess ’cause we fatties can’t spell any better than those kitties.
I guess douche hound is in general usage, but it seems to have special relevance here.
What about baby-flavored doughnuts? Mmmm, baby.
intuitive eating
thin privilege
(Both of these are general FA terms rather than Shapely Prose-specific, but they’re frequent enough to warrant a mention.)
god, there have been so many inside jokes here, and I’ve forgotten them all! my brain is empty!
Sanity Watchers Points?
(Oops, sorry, posted this under my other user name, no wonder it’s still awaiting moderation).
Avast ye, landlubbers and surprise me cunt!
I really liked the riff on all white foods being bad:
http://kateharding.net/2008/01/31/the-not-so-silent-killer/
I believe this was on the heels of fellow fat bloggers Rachel and Mopie’s fabulous appearance on the Mike and Juliet morning show.
Oh, actually, it was first mentioned in this post:
http://kateharding.net/2008/01/28/congrats-rachel-and-mo/
Being fat AT someone.
“lol your fat” definitely originated at the Fat Princess troll-slayer thread at Shakesville.
“Being fat at someone” is one of my favorite SP phrases.
I think it was Kate quoting Miss Conduct.
I <3 the whole concept behind the phrase “being fat at someone.” That’s how I got up the courage to not smother myself in today’s sticky heat by throwing on a hoodie over the close-fitting tanktop I’m wearing, to cover mah fatz when I went to the grocery store…I said to myself, “Self, you are going to live your principles for once. Now go out and be fat at them!”
And I did. And the world did not end. Hurray!
Baby donuts has made it into other people’s conversations at my workplace.
I don’t know WHO might have been constantly referencing them… *whistles, looks innocent*
Teh Obesez
Teh Death Fatz (and the other lolcat-related language)
The Fantasy of Being Thin or TOTB
The “fat as a feminist issue” deal
Bouncy Castles
One of my neighbors had one of these set up the other day, and I actually kindof wished I had twitter for a milisecond so I could share it with someone else who would get it.
Alas.
Plus we need to post the Piggy Moo history and discography. Remember how we totally rocked our faces off?
TWO WHOLE CAKES, mad props to Lesley.
Teh diabeeeeeetus!!!
Duh truck! Though it’s sort of self-explanatory.
OMG, she now has two cakes on the banner! Love.
Yeah, I’ve got nothing. Y’all have already taken the ones I thought of.
Maybe “a pile of fucking spinach”.
Kneel before zod. Because I have no clue what it’s about.
Did someone already say “buttered motherfucking noodles?” It’s a new one, but an instant classic! :D
The Shakesville thread that lol your fat came from is:
http://shakespearessister.blogspot.com/2008/07/fat-princess-greatest-hits.html
I second the inclusion of coconut crabs.
Hey, it’s not only the book-induced newcomers that need a glossary! I’ve been lurking for about a year now and I still don’t get the baby donut thing…
I love “teh obeses” it just cracks me up.
Zod is a bad guy in the Superman universe, and in Superman II, he is played by Terrence Stamp and it is awesome: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UKDFop0aqYQ
I forgot the link for A Sarah’s Buttered MF Noodles: http://kateharding.net/2009/05/12/quote-of-the-day-3/#comments
Donut-flavored babies in tiny pants eating two whole cakes! OH FOR CUTE om nom nom.
I mean baby donuts and tiny pants and TWO WHOLE CAKES because who doesn’t want to eat two whole cakes?
Also Piggy Moo and Sanity Watchers.
As much as I hate to admit it, the coconut crabs thing probably could use a definition since there’s not really a way to grasp the sheer horror of it without explanation and pictures.
Possibly a link to the original Fat Rant? I knew about it before I got here but others may not have seen it first.
DRST
OMG I forgot about “surprise me cunt!” lol. That was one of my favorites.
Definitely Sanity Watchers.
The first quoted instance on this blog (I just did a search) seems to be on this post, but it already feels well used and understood by then. Could be we all just frikkin’ did WW.
On the other hand, I am suddenly overcome with the urge to design actual Sanity Watchers merchandise. Like Fat Hate Bingo!
You can blow all your points in one day without being aware with a concern troll who you think is actually good for you – Just like Corn, or other Vegetables of Evil.
Or, you can just sink right into the centre of a Devil’s Thought Cake, and blow your points with one douchehound comment.
Maybe some fat hate bingo cards could be included as well.
This is slightly off-topic, but I wanted to share something that a troll posted on my blog recently: “it isn’t about civil rights, it is about fat people literately clogging up our society”.
I just think that “literately clogging up our society” is a fabulous line, although of course it was unintentional. If only our society could be clogged up with literacy (by fat people, no less), what a wonderful world it would be!
I had to define “headless fatties” the other day (even though it is intutitive to a certain extent).
Anybody else want to get a (troll-screened) wiki-lexicon going? I think the fat-o-sphere could really use one.
I think a Shapely Prose Wiki would be brilliant. You can easily open them at Wikia. I couldn’t tell you how to make one or anything, because I suck at that sort of thing, but it’d be a nice way to organize everything from Shapely Prose Vocabulary to important entries. It would be useful for new users and long-time readers/posters alike!
Surprise me cunt, is also one of my very favorites.
@Alicia. Same here. Know about sanity points, baby donuts, being fat at someone and bouncy castle but the coconut crabs are a mystery. Now I’m all intrigued and stuff so somebody explain please.
If there is enough interest (and if the Powers that Be at SP* agree, of course), I’d be happy to head up a wiki. I’m a librarian, so I’ve done similar sorts of things before.
*who are welcome to email me via the super seekrit mandatory-for-posting email address I provided if they want to discuss it or get my real life credentials or anything like that.
Arwen, Sanity Watchers came from comments to this post.
Coconut crabs here.
As a fan of both shellfish and coconut, I’m really sad that “coconut crabs” isn’t some sort of delicious entree.
It’s as simple as that! (Ok, that isn’t originally from SP, but it went around for a while.)
Aunt Fattie has been in the freezer for a while, but the occasional reference might come up, so she might belong in the lexicon!
SM’s first comment here is the reference to getting fat on fancy cheese instead of doughnuts! I forgot about that one, but I had just searched for something else and that post came up.
Lori, it’s the delicious entree that will crack open your head!
How about “have you tried diet and exercise”?
DO NOT GOOGLE THE COCONUT CRABS.
I’m still reeling from the idea of paying somebody to let fish eat my feet. I do not need to think about coconut crabs, unless they are going to be served to me at Red Lobster with a little cup of melted butter on the side.
Red Lobster anecdotes are totally fine, right?
SERIOUSLY. THAT’S WHAT STARTED IT THE LAST TIME.
(Can you tell I’m still a bit wigged out?)
(Also, I think I said “Obesity Epidemic BOOGA BOOGA BOOGA” first, but it was someplace like the old Big Fat Blog or the Fat!So? board from like four or five years ago, and thus I can’t find it Googling. Nonetheless, I’m happy to see it gain traction.)
Red Lobster anecdotes are totally fine, right?
Only if they include “Andre, you just can’t embarrass me in front of my colleagues at Red Lobster this way.”
I just made the mistake of googling coconut crabs…big mistake.
*shudders*
meowser, totally that one. Also comments on that post reminded me about cough drops.
I forget which post it was, but we were talking about really fat fatties, such as myself, and I came up with “demonically obese.” All I know is, somebody liked it. *evilgrin*
If we’re talking about things that we wish were in the lexicon, I can’t remember which post it was in, but I loved something Kate said once about people believing that a “normal” BMI comes with a “side of immortality.” I think so much fat-hate really comes down to a fear of mortality, so I wish the desire for a “side of immortality” was discussed more often. And that there were more occasions to use the phrase.
Charlotte! Listen to car! Do not give in!! They will crack open your head THROUGH THE INTERNET!!
Oh, I did like that, Bree! demonically obese!
Heehee I like how in attempting to come up with an already existing lexicon, we are trying to add new things on the spot. you guys are pretty funny.
Just thought I’d add for the Coconut Crabs that whole list of evil baddies we started forming. Manticores and Coconut Crabs and Magalodons oh my!
As for defined terms most things came up here already that I had pondered in my first SP posts. Maybe a link to UrbanDictionary.com to look up all those chat-speak-esque things like “Natch” might be good too but that could just be the reference librarian in me getting over-eager ;)
Didn’t we have someone who was told they didn’t lose weight at a WW weigh in because they ate cough drops. For awhile there were a lot of references to eating cough drops (as a short hand for omg, fatties lie about what they eat….and everything has calories….boo!)
I second a call for baby donuts, tiny pants, FOBT, 2 Cakes, etc.
Joy Nash’s “Staircase Wit” amused me as a vocab term and could be useful.
I see Fillyjonk remembered the cough drops while I was writing.
Glad to see I could channel a brilliant mind for a few seconds….
“I am Kate Harding…..no wait, maybe I am Fillyjonk!!”
Just a note on the wiki idea: I do not recommend Wikia. We use it for the Geek Feminism wiki (currently looking for more editors, head on over), and the ads are terrible, all about getting a lesbian hot date. I am sure an FA wiki would end up plastered in diet ads.
When I first started reading this site, it took me a while to figure out what WLS stood for.
Joining in the coconut crab fun- my favorite has always been the vampyroteuthis infernalis (“vampire squid from hell”). My brother and I saw a display about them at the Smithsonian as kids, and for years I thought we must have made them up, because nothing could possibly be so awesome.
Oh man, I can’t believe I didn’t think of “devouring the world.”
Coconut crabs don’t worry me for some reason. It could be because I’m from Australia…
I saw “staircase wit” mentioned in a Peanuts comic recently, I had to chuckle.
What about the Rack of Doom?
Also, I think I said “Obesity Epidemic BOOGA BOOGA BOOGA” first,
Yes, I believe you do get the credit for that, Meowser! I have shamelessly stolen it. Also, if the originator of the phrase “Rack of Doom” (which I got from someone on lj fats about 2.5 years ago, but fuck if I can remember who) ever wants to make yourself known, I will gladly attribute it to you.
Ha, jinx, Elizabeth. Sort of.
No license!
http://kateharding.net/2007/10/17/and-theres-not-even-a-written-test/ and elsewhere
I’ll be back with more
This thread has some fun ones in it:
http://kateharding.net/2009/01/15/lol-your-caveman/
Think about it!
and
Wouldn’t a nice, titanium coating be easier?
I’m looking at the troll-related threads as the shaplitariat does an amazing job of turning the douchhounds around.
How about “Dude Nation”? Or is that not SP-specific?
Come to think of it, I would like very much to submit a brand spankin’ new one for consideration:
“The Church of Dieting (Praise be to the Blessed Holy Diet!)”
carrots (which are more or less like cough drops — so, perhaps a “see also: carrots”)? Someone told a story about getting berated in WW for eating too many carrots, right? I didn’t just make that up?
Piggy Moo!
“I am Kate Harding.”
Do we need to define Kate’s not-so-friendly relationship with Dan Savage? I don’t feel like that comes up often, but it came to mind.
Concern trolls. It’s just so freaking apt.
Okay, I just went back and re-read the “Lol your caveman” post, and died laughing all over again.
I love you guys so much.
How can we not include Fat Satan?
I second the Giant Phantom Schlong Dude.
Hmmmmmm . . . Maybe the original Schlong got eaten by the coconut crab*.
*Had to look up coconut crab to figure it out. At first I thought it was, ahem, you know, CRABS.
East Jesus Christ, Nebraska
American motherfucking courage
Pointless, Incessant Barking
in-betweenie
Fatsploitation
I’m sure somebody has already mentioned ‘douchehound,’ though I dunno if that’s correctly a Shapely Proseism…
baleeted
I know there are more.
RE: cough drops, carrots
I once had a doctor warn me that chewing too much sugar-free gum could cause me to regain weight I had lost — it had happened with another patient. Only now, with about 14 years of perspective, can I see that she really was invested in the “diets can work forever” mindset. I’m glad she wasn’t my doctor for too long. Yeah, right, it’s the sugar-free gum that causes weight regain, not, like, homeostasis.
there was one that was used pretty recently…maybe in this post: http://kateharding.net/2009/03/02/link-round-up-space-hopper-edition/?
tee hee
space hoppers.
Speaking of terminology, I’ve been trying to find out who came up with the term obesity “epi-panic,” as I need to cite the source in a paper I’m writing. Anyone here know?
Didn’t Alexandra come up with “scienterrific” and “it’s as simple as that” at the now, sadly, defunct Thin Institute of Nutrition?
Could this list somehow reference that post with the t-shirt? Someone posted a link to a t-shirt that had a picture of a hippo working out on a treadmill and looking at a unicorn. In the thread, everyone made up cute stories about the hippo and the unicorn. I’ll see if I can hunt that post down.
Oh, we have to have “scienterrific”. It’s one of my faves! And how did I manage to miss the coconut crabs the first time? (I really wish I’d missed them this time round too. Shudder).
Wait, we have to include Caitlin’s immortal quote “Every time you think for yourself, a coconut crab eats a puppy.”
http://kateharding.net/2009/01/27/sample-article-on-fat-to-be-used-for-the-rest-of-time/
Additionally, not that I would ever try to capture one, but I’ve recently discovered in my research brought on by amusing search engine hits that coconuts crabs are edible and are considered a delicacy in their native regions.
I’d be intrigued to learn how thay catch the damn things. *shudder*
Oh – and “speshul tiny snowflakes” in re: naturally thin folks, I think. Who said it? I laugh every time I type it out.
P.S. Not that I am poking fun at naturally thin people. I mean that the term was used by a thin ally to make the point that being naturally thin doesn’t necessarily indicate some higher level of willpower or determination.
Can someone help me here? I’m floundering.
Just to correct my last comment, the shirt has a rhino, not a hippo!
I found it!
(I apologize for not knowing how to properly tag this. I fail at internets today.)
http://kateharding.net/2007/10/31/the-rhinos-are-all-right/
Coco, I think I said something like “magical fairy” or something, but I don’t think “speshul tiny snowflakes” were my words. Anyone?
Charlotte,
Thank you so much for linking to that thread. It was like traveling back in time — ah, I remember October 2007, vaguely. That was before I had a blog of my own. That was a great thread. Good times.
wellroundedtype2:
You’re welcome! I actually went back and re-read it, and laughed my butt off for an hour. Sometimes it’s good to go back and read some the hilarity that has happened here.
Somewhere out there, in October of 2007, rhino/unicorn slash fic was born…
Just thought of two more:
Holy cats
and
by the tits of Persephone (although, as I recall, this was robbed from elsewhere)
Well, i have to say that i read the thread about coconut crabs, and i’m disappointed that “vanilla scented farts” never got picked up.
http://kateharding.net/2009/01/26/fat-is-contagious-again/#comment-82047
Also, ps, i just googled the coconut crab, despite all advice to the contrary, and i am so so so so glad i was ignorant of their existence when i was in Bali. I would have been a paranoid mess.
“License to eat ice cream.”
As in “Well, we found out that being fat is NOT an instant death sentence after all and that diets don’t actually, you know, work, but THAT DOESN’T MEAN you have a license to eat ice cream all day!”
And let’s not forget the delicate ennui of riboflavin!
Pendulous breasts. Please. It doesn’t float around here too often anymore (though I think someone’s id is now pendulous breasts?), but I use it IRL all the time.
Speaking of the Coconut Crabs, I saw a two-toed sloth this weekend at the National Aviary (yeah, I’m not sure either) and had to try to explain to my boyfriend why it made me giggle like a fool.
I second Mary’s opinion</a. of Wikia. I’d (ideally) go with a premium version of Wetpaint.
damn HTML got away from me. My apologies
Most of my favourites have already been logged, but what about tiny ponies? I believe that came from stitchtowhere’s Fatshionista posting, but was mentioned here.
I love the baby flavored donuts. I use it all the time and credit it (in science writing we say reference it) accordingly :-)
I have no understanding of coconut crabs or the bouncy castles and I have been a fan for years…
If you’re still thinking of doing this, I would suggest “straw fatty” also
“zombie fat” also…if that hasn’t been suggested