al-in-chgo's definitions
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Altering or adding to a prior word or term term that must be further defined in the light of later developments or technical innovation.
Example: No one called "World War One" that until there was a "World War Two" with which to contrast it. The going term during the 1914-1918 war and up to 1939 was "The Great War."
Altering or adding to a prior word or term term that must be further defined in the light of later developments or technical innovation.
Example: No one called "World War One" that until there was a "World War Two" with which to contrast it. The going term during the 1914-1918 war and up to 1939 was "The Great War."
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Other employment of term retronym:
Telephone becomes "rotary-dial phone" to distinguish it from the push-button phones that became widespread in the 1970s and early 1980s (although rotary-dial phones still work if all you want to do is place a call and don't need to access features like querying a bank account balance).
Similarly, telephone also becomes "corded phone" to distinguish the traditional hard-wired telephone from those that are wireless in some way, such as cordless phones.
"Regular" coffee to distinguish it from decaffeinated coffee; some people say "caffeinated" coffee but strictly speaking this is a grammatical back-formation, not a retronym, because "to caffeinate" would mean to ADD caffeine to traditional coffee.
Note, though, that Coca-Cola is a "caffeinated" or "caffeine-containing" soft drink in its usual red-can form. Now that there is a Caffeine-Free Coca-Cola "caffeinated" could find use as a retronym for "the real thing."
"Manual" or "standard" or "stick" transmission on a car, none of which terms was necessary before automatic transmissions on cars became widespread and assumed to be the norm.
And, of course, "acoustic" guitar.
Other employment of term retronym:
Telephone becomes "rotary-dial phone" to distinguish it from the push-button phones that became widespread in the 1970s and early 1980s (although rotary-dial phones still work if all you want to do is place a call and don't need to access features like querying a bank account balance).
Similarly, telephone also becomes "corded phone" to distinguish the traditional hard-wired telephone from those that are wireless in some way, such as cordless phones.
"Regular" coffee to distinguish it from decaffeinated coffee; some people say "caffeinated" coffee but strictly speaking this is a grammatical back-formation, not a retronym, because "to caffeinate" would mean to ADD caffeine to traditional coffee.
Note, though, that Coca-Cola is a "caffeinated" or "caffeine-containing" soft drink in its usual red-can form. Now that there is a Caffeine-Free Coca-Cola "caffeinated" could find use as a retronym for "the real thing."
"Manual" or "standard" or "stick" transmission on a car, none of which terms was necessary before automatic transmissions on cars became widespread and assumed to be the norm.
And, of course, "acoustic" guitar.
by al-in-chgo March 6, 2010
Get the retronymmug. Adjective "butch" (deeply or stereotypically masculine-looking and -acting, applied to both men and women) made into a jocular noun. "Butch" is nowadays almost always an adjective ("I love your butch new leather jacket"), now that the old use as a noun to mean "boy vendor" (newsbutch or news butcher) peaked during the 1950s and is now archaic if not completely obsolete. The closest nominative uses of "butch" are adjuncts or idioms like "butch haircut" or "Harold is a butch top, not a femme bottom."
"Masculinity" means possesion of masculine traits or appearance, while "butchiosity" introduces a note of irony: the appearance or trying to act in a conventionally or socially-acceptable masculine manner expected by the straight world.
"Butchness" is problematic, as it is not consisently used to mean the quality of visible masculinity; instead, the user is often forced into grammatical adaptations like "He behaves in a butch way," or "Sometimes he overcompensates and out-butches himself."
"Butchiosity" is almost certainly a back-formation inspired by the 1977 Woody Allen movie ANNIE HALL (screen play: W. Allen and Marshall Brickman): "Was it heavy a rock concert? Did it achieve . . . heaviosity?"
"Masculinity" means possesion of masculine traits or appearance, while "butchiosity" introduces a note of irony: the appearance or trying to act in a conventionally or socially-acceptable masculine manner expected by the straight world.
"Butchness" is problematic, as it is not consisently used to mean the quality of visible masculinity; instead, the user is often forced into grammatical adaptations like "He behaves in a butch way," or "Sometimes he overcompensates and out-butches himself."
"Butchiosity" is almost certainly a back-formation inspired by the 1977 Woody Allen movie ANNIE HALL (screen play: W. Allen and Marshall Brickman): "Was it heavy a rock concert? Did it achieve . . . heaviosity?"
"Your buddy ought to butch up his act, or he'll never make it in the suburbs." "I don't think it's so much a matter of butchiosity as the fact that he hasn't been around suburbanites since going to college and knows next to nothing about kids, lawnmowers and pro sports."
"Who is that great-looking hunk?" "Oh, him satirically, "her". He looks like a tower of butchiosity but on the inside there's a major flaming queen screaming to be let out."
Compared to "masculinity," "butchiosity" introduces a note of irony: the appearance of masculinity, or trying to appear conventionally masculine. Machismo is lexically coherent as a loan-word from Spanish but has connotations of an ingrained, often unacceptable and patriarchal behavior, overmasculine from the start; or old-fashioned notions of being a man. Instead, "butchiosity"comes with a twist: it can imply a trying-too-hard, self-conscious or overstudied presentation of an image of masculinity, especially in an attempt to meet the straight world's expectations of same.
An act not a trait, as it were.
"Who is that great-looking hunk?" "Oh, him satirically, "her". He looks like a tower of butchiosity but on the inside there's a major flaming queen screaming to be let out."
Compared to "masculinity," "butchiosity" introduces a note of irony: the appearance of masculinity, or trying to appear conventionally masculine. Machismo is lexically coherent as a loan-word from Spanish but has connotations of an ingrained, often unacceptable and patriarchal behavior, overmasculine from the start; or old-fashioned notions of being a man. Instead, "butchiosity"comes with a twist: it can imply a trying-too-hard, self-conscious or overstudied presentation of an image of masculinity, especially in an attempt to meet the straight world's expectations of same.
An act not a trait, as it were.
by al-in-chgo January 25, 2010
Get the butchiositymug. Pre-Sid Vicious, pre-any stringy young male, "Punk" referred to the passive or "bottom" partner in a male-on-male prison sexual relationship. (The dominant or "top" man was called the "jock" or "jocker".) Since the punk was usually the scrawnier and younger of the two, that meaning of the term escaped into the general culture and eventually became attached to young, rebellious men fronting kick-ass rock bands.
(Description of a prison killer in Truman Capote's IN COLD BLOOD 1966): "Just two jockers fighting over a punk."
by al-in-chgo June 14, 2010
Get the punkmug. U.S. Marine Corps term for intramural football games set up in periods of slack to keep the soldiers from having too much idle time.
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Sargeant, there's a hole between mess at 1245 and policing the grounds at 1400. How about a little organized grabass for the men?" -- "Excellent idea, Corporal. Tell Johnston and Greene to ready the football supplies.
by al-in-chgo April 7, 2011
Get the organized grabassmug. .
A polite and gender-specific way to say fuck buddy (a term which can apply to male and female alike), both meaning a fairly regular sexual partner of whom no particular social commitment or romantic allegiance is expected. Very similar to "friend with benefits" except that if absoutely necessary the guy can be referred to as a "boyfriend" which, strictly speaking, isn't a lie.
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A polite and gender-specific way to say fuck buddy (a term which can apply to male and female alike), both meaning a fairly regular sexual partner of whom no particular social commitment or romantic allegiance is expected. Very similar to "friend with benefits" except that if absoutely necessary the guy can be referred to as a "boyfriend" which, strictly speaking, isn't a lie.
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Abercrombie? Oh, he's an honorary boyfriend at most. He gets nookie but I don't have to take him shopping. So far so good for us both."
"Am I still looking for a "regular" boyfriend? Sure, but for now Dolph keeps me satisfied sexually, so I know horniness is not going to interfere with my judgment choosing a real boyfriend."
Abercrombie? Oh, he's an honorary boyfriend at most. He gets nookie but I don't have to take him shopping. So far so good for us both."
"Am I still looking for a "regular" boyfriend? Sure, but for now Dolph keeps me satisfied sexually, so I know horniness is not going to interfere with my judgment choosing a real boyfriend."
by al-in-chgo March 5, 2010
Get the honorary boyfriendmug. 1. An all-purpose insult hurled by sexually naive children.
2. Otherwise, a deliberate term of abuse (self-appointed public guardians of the language like Ann Coulter notwithstanding, see no. 65 above) towards a gay man. When aimed by a straight person at a gay person, terms such as "cocksucker," "faggot," "fag," "dyke" or "homo" are meant to insult, and do. "Queer" can be a little more liberally applied but nonetheless careful writers do not use it to refer to a group other than themselves unless they know the intended recipients of the remark very well.
2. Otherwise, a deliberate term of abuse (self-appointed public guardians of the language like Ann Coulter notwithstanding, see no. 65 above) towards a gay man. When aimed by a straight person at a gay person, terms such as "cocksucker," "faggot," "fag," "dyke" or "homo" are meant to insult, and do. "Queer" can be a little more liberally applied but nonetheless careful writers do not use it to refer to a group other than themselves unless they know the intended recipients of the remark very well.
--"I was just called a 'flaming faggot'. Does that mean I'm a bundle of sticks on fire?"
--"You know perfectly well it doesn't. Man up and confront the person who so disingenuously hurled that insult at you."
--"You know perfectly well it doesn't. Man up and confront the person who so disingenuously hurled that insult at you."
by al-in-chgo February 19, 2010
Get the faggotmug. A term consistently used during the lead-in to the "Twitters, Tweets and E-Mail" section of Craig Ferguson's "Late Late Night Show" on CBS.
May refer to the practice of setting a cell phone to "ring" not with sound but with vibration. Worn on the fanny (or inside a fanny pack), such a phone would be communicating an inbound call in "Ass Mode."
May refer to the practice of setting a cell phone to "ring" not with sound but with vibration. Worn on the fanny (or inside a fanny pack), such a phone would be communicating an inbound call in "Ass Mode."
by al-in-chgo February 25, 2011
Get the Ass Modemug.