Meth, MIRVs, and Miranda

ARVN, n. The acronym is for the Army of the Republic of (South) Vietnam.

From Life, May 8, 1964, page 39: “It’s a known fact over here that the ARVN (South Vietnamese army units) don’t receive many casualties. ... So the ARVN always leaves them a way free. This is fact, not rumor.”

folkie, n. The times they were a-changing, but ironically popular music was reaching back to revive folk tunes.

From Life, May 21, 1965, page 19: “There are folkies: single, paired and in mobs.” (It looks like this can be further antedated, but it’s too discouraging to try to deal with the metadata, which seems to be getting worse instead of better.)

Stolichnaya, n. The name of the Russian vodka appears in a 1966 Len Deighton spy novel. But Stolichnaya was trademarked and went on sale in the United States in 1969.

Perhaps of interest: the name (Столичная) is based on the word for ‘capital city’ (столица), and it was originally made (starting sometime during WWII) by the Moscow State Wine Warehouse №1.

I heard the term “mind-blowing” on the TV show The Flying Nun, of all places, so I suppose it became mainstream quickly.

Foosball, n. The Anglicized name of the German table-top soccer game Fußball was filed as a trademark in the United States in 1966.

When I was stationed in Dortmund with the British Army in 1965/6 Fußball was everywhere and we were crazy over it. God, the time I must have spent in the NAAFI and German bars playing this game. Still one of the most satisfying sounds imaginable, the thwack! of the ball slamming into the goal.

gross-out, n. and adj. (also gross out, v.) Slang lexicographers record this term for something disgusting or repellant in 1966.

Typo: that should be repellent.

You’ve typoed your typo alert.

In the US, repellant is an accepted variant spelling.

True, though it repels those of us familiar with Latin repellere.

languagehat - 15 April 2012 08:55 AM

You’ve typoed your typo alert.

Fixed. Thanks, lh. An example of Sod’s Law.

You know, I wondered whether Dave’s spelling was a US variant and checked OED, which usually gives variants. It let me down on this one obviously. An unrevised entry and a comparatively recent variant perhaps?

Likely so.  “Recent” in terms of being listed in dictionaries, I would suspect.

“Repellent” looks righter to me for the adjective, but I believe I would probably write “a can of insect repellant” without twitching an eyelash. (That’s an admission, not a position I’m advocating.)

Thanks all.

I admire and enjoy this series immensely, and really don’t like to nitpick it. I had hoped that by now, someone else would have suggested that the great Buster Keaton was (like all the rest of us) entitled to have his name properly spelt....

Done. My apologies to the legacy of the great man.

What gets me is why my spell checker didn’t flag “Buston.”

I noticed the reference to “Buston Keaton”, but hesitated to comment on it.  “buster” seemed more like a nick-name than a name, and it seemed possible that “Buston” was his real name, and Buster his stage name. Obviously, that’s not the case here, but I’ve learned to be careful about “correcting” people on this website when i “know” they made a mistake, only to find out they were right and I was the one who was mistaken.

According to Wikipedia, Buster is indeed a stage name: his birth name is Joseph Keaton.  Wikipedia notes that the nickname supposedly was given to Joseph by no less a personage than Harry Houdini, who toured with Buster’s dad on a travelling “medicine show.” Supposedly, little Joseph took a hard fall, and Houdini observed that it was a real buster.  Wikipedia also notes that this story may well be aprocryphal.  (this particular tale, though, was repeatedly told by Buster himself in interviews, and he repeated the tale in an interview he did shortly before his death).

I’ve learned to be careful about “correcting” people on this website when i “know” they made a mistake, only to find out they were right and I was the one who was mistaken.

Welcome to the club.

upscale, adj. The marketing and demographic term makes its appearance.

Another expression (like “storied") I constantly have to take out of copy written by Americans in publications written for a British audience, since, while its meaning is probably clear in context, it’s unknown in British English: our equivalent is “upmarket” (which I see the OED dates only from 1972).