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old lang guy's definitions

fork stuck in the road

Any exceptionally stupid or illiterate phrase found in a pop song. Particularly if it's then defended or expounded upon in various "meanings of lyrics" sites or in fan writing. A lot of pop stars were so totally created by parents/managers/agents/etc. that they went straight from a suburban bedroom to the celeb suites without having read a book or talked to a real person on the way, getting all their alleged education from other pop songs and tv.

The words "fork stuck in the road" originally occurred in a Green Day song, and in a later interview (urban legend has it) the songwriter came up with a long story about how people on journeys would stick a dinner fork into the road to show they'd been there or some such -- apparently being unaware that a dinner fork was originally a "forked spoon", i.e. one that split, the way a forked stick or a forked road splits, and that a "fork in the road" is a place where you make a decision, not a milestone or boundary marker. (I can find no evidence that any such interview occurred, but it seems to be widely believed in).
"Hey, somebody should tell Alanis that every time you hear the rolling thunder, it means the lightning already missed you. And read her a definition of ironic."

"That's like so unfair! She was saying that like, he runs away when there's no reason to! And she was making fun of the way people use the word ironic wrong!"

"Naw, it was just another fork stuck in the road. She's the fork stuck in the road goddess."
by old lang guy September 17, 2008
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Work Songs

Also songs used when people needed to work in rhythm. Many are familiar folk songs. Like

--sea chanteys where the lead singer's solo line would get everyone set, and then they'd all sing (and therefore exhale) when they put out their effort pulling on a line.

-- field hollers that were used to keep lines hoeing a field up with each other. (And field hollers, speeded up and with some rhythm and some guitar added, might have been one of the origins of the blues, and thus of most American popular music since 1920)

-- capstan chanteys that kept people pretty much walking in the same rhythm while they turned giant cranks.

Very often work songs were subversive, making fun of the boss, complaining about the conditions, and sometimes carrying instructions for prison breaks, union organizing, or the Underground Railroad.
Work songs examples:

Sea chantey,

Leader (while the end man belays, and everyone walks up the line and gets a grip): Reuben was no sailor ...

Crew (Singing while they pull the line back): Ranzo, boys ranzo!

(later in the song it turns out Reuben is now the captain ...)

Field holler ...

Leader: (while the crew picks up their hammers, stretches, and gets ready to swing): When Israel was in Egypt land ...

Crew (hitting on the drills on let, peop, and go): LET MY PEOPLE GO!

Capstan chantey, used to turn the winch to move the locks on the canal ...

Leader (while crew breathe and get set): I got a mule, her name is Sal ...

Crew (Walking forward, pushing on the capstan bars): FIFTEEN MILES ON THE ERIE CANAL!
by old lang guy July 14, 2008
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tits up

Show biz slang for hyper positive attitude. From the legendary rallying cry of the lead chorine for Broadway shows, just before they go on stage -- "Tits up, girls!" Usually an adjective -- a tits up attitude, taking the tits up approach, they want someone who's totally tits up for the job.
Everything is going to shit but my boss is so tits up I may have to kill him.

They want to see a lot of tits up attitude this quarter, when the new product rolls out.
by old lang guy October 17, 2006
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mini-slut

Teacher slang for middle school girls who dress trampy, claim more sexual experience than they really have, and loudly discuss everyone else's clothing, popularity, etc.; mini-sluts tend to intimidate boys their own age but are laughed at by anyone older than they are, especially the high school boys they try to attract. They usually know everything you can learn in a chatroom or by watching television, and nothing else. Noted for their diva-ish tantrums and rigid enforcement of whatever they think the social rules should be.
Teacher 1: Did you have some trouble with that mini-slut Kelly at lunch?

Teacher 2: Yeah, she announced that Wendy dressed like a fucktard virgin and slapped her, because Wendy was wearing a skirt and sweater instead of a belly shirt and pube jeans. Then all the other mini-sluts jumped on Wendy. I think they just wanted to get sent home during high school lunch hour so they could walk by the high school.
by old lang guy September 17, 2008
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gorilla

The big goon you take along when you think the other party may want to get rough (or when you are trying to intimidate them). Large, ugly, and not prone to smiling, at least not nicely. Sometimes heard as gorilla up.
I gotta get my security deposit back from that asshole, he was supposed to split it to all the roommates, so I need to take along a gorilla.

If you really need to talk to that one, better gorilla up. Sam'll go along if you ask him.
by old lang guy September 17, 2008
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tits on a rooster

1: Double useless, something with no point at all. Comes off of "tits on" any male mammal, since males don't nurse the young; chickens of course don't nurse their young at all, so tits would be especially useless on a rooster.

2: derogatory for tiny or very small breasts
He's not even tits on a boar, at best he's tits on a rooster.

So we had it about worked out when Tits on a Rooster finally showed up, and it all had to have his input.

She's got about the same tits God gave a rooster.
by old lang guy October 29, 2006
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douchebag

Nick Bilton, whose March 10 article in the New York Times managed to explain how to be a digital/electronic douchebag for the audience of the New York Times.
Nick Bilton, of the New York Times, is such an utter douchebag that, in a section of the country and a social class noted for its production of douchebags, he is an instructor of others in how to extend douchebaggery to the digital realm.
by old lang guy March 20, 2013
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