NTMP 120: The Avocado Shag

Ope, I did it again

Aug 18, 2024

New-To-Me Phrases, August 18, 2024

Fruit burrito * Alaskatarian * The broccoli perm * Coffee badging * Mega penguin * The recency illusion * Pigbutt * Bonkers crazypants word salads

A penguin perched on a rock and stretching their stubby little wings to the back, making them look adorably silly — Photo by William Warby on Unsplash

The phrases, with context

It’s mid-August and our A/C is on the fritz. At least it’s not over 90 degrees for once. Just 80 degrees with 88% humidity. And I for one welcome our ragweed overlords as I await Monday morning when I can beg our HVAC company to save us.

This week we have French Fruit Roll-Ups, Midwestern identity crisis, trending veggie hair, and more.

But first: Poll results!

July poll results showing Millennial Kennels as the winner. Runners up: Drunken nuggets, Racist Care Bear, Dinkytown, and Vladimir Futon

Millennial kennels was the winner for July. I was surprised Dinkytown didn’t get more love because it is so incredibly silly, but to be fair, there was a lot of good competition. Thanks for voting!

And now for some phrases. Let’s get to it!

1. Fruit burrito

This is how my husband described crepes. Amazing. No notes.

2. Alaskatarian

I spotted this portmanteau in a fascinating NYT piece about people’s grocery shopping habits with a great click-bait headline, What Your Grocery Cart Says About You:

“There is a lottery for residents to have the opportunity to hunt. In 2019, I harvested the moose, and that feeds our extended family on red meat for a couple of years. I rarely buy or eat commercial meat, so subsistence hunting and fishing affects my diet in that I eat fish and game only when it’s available. I call it Alaskatarian.” — Amy O’Neill Houck, 51, Cordova, Alaska

I mean, subsistence hunting ang gathering has existed for millennia but okay. It’s defintely more a thing in Alaska than it is in the lower 48.

3. The broccoli perm

This phrase comes from a fun style trend read in GQ I found via Garbage Day. For better or worse, floppy-top curls are Gen Z’s signature young dude look.

From the article:

The Zoomer perm—also known as the broccoli cut and bird’s nest hair—has had a stranglehold on teenage boys’ heads over the last few years. Walk through any shopping mall or Planet Fitness and you’ll likely see flocks of floppy-haired dudes seemingly spawning by the second.

As a Planet Fitness member, this description was too real.

This entire trend started with a prank, where teen YouTuber Dillon Latham permed his hair on a dare to garner likes and it went viral. Before he knew it, classmates were emulating his self-owning style, and here we are. Humans are such social creatures and it’s wild how inescapable this is.

4. Coffee badging

One of the few good things to come from COVID-19 lockdowns is the realization that many more of us can work from home than was previously believed. Organizations were forced to adapt to a home-based workforce and Zoom meetings. Some decided to continue that way thereafter, while others adopted a hybrid model split between days at home and at the office.

Over the last year, as some CEOs are demanding that people return to the office for vaguely defined (if at all) reasons, one way people are pushing back is through coffee badging. This is where an employee swipes their badge to enter their workplace, stays long enough to have a quick meeting over coffee, and then returns home where they can actually focus. Mandate fulfilled — unless your employer wants to track how long you’re actually at the office via that badge, and hold it against you when it comes time for a promotion, according to this HuffPo piece on coffee badging.

It’s a good read that makes the point that while employers may be tempted to gather “people analytics” (pardon me while I retch) to monitor employee behavior, actually having compelling reasons for people to be in the office might be a smarter investment. Imagine that. (Thanks to NTMP superstar Rebecca for this one!)

5. Mega penguin

Did you know that there used to be a penguin that stood over six feet tall? YOU DO NOW! I mean, I love birds but they are assholes. If they’re either bigger than me OR outnumber me, I start getting nervous. I’d still love to see one of those giant penguins, though.

Did cool big animals like T. Rex and the mega penguin (Palaeeudyptes klekowskii) have stubby little arms to them humble?

6. The recency illusion

I found this phrase while reading about how saying “Ope!” is not exclusive to the Midwest.

According to Grant Barrett, co-host of the public radio podcast A Way With Words, not only is ope not Midwestern in origin, it’s not based on a word or cultural theme at all, but rather a physical bodily function we make when we stop expelling air.

Even better, the word “oops” is probably derived from this behavior.

Barrett attributes the association with the Midwest to the recency illusion, where once you notice something, you see it more often. And memes about a certain region saying/doing a certain thing spread and tend to be memorable. (h/t to Brendan at Semi-Rad for this one.)

7. Pigbutt

What an awesome word! I love it so much. Big “first grade playground insult” energy. I found it through this awesome teaser headline that seems to only exist within Apple News:

I bookmarked that so fast I injured myself.

IFLS had a great headline that I definitely added to my list of great headlines:

These Flying Buttocks Are Actually A Pigbutt Worm

Scientists at Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute discovered these blobby creatures - here’s video of them being blobby. They even gave them a Latin name related to the word pigbutt, “Chaetopterus pugaporcinus: puga from the Latin root word meaning ‘rump’; porcus meaning ‘pig’; and inus meaning ‘having the likeness of.’”

They buried the lede, however - these little dudes are bioluminescent, including when they expel mucous, which is sort of equivalent to farting. I am so glad humans can’t do this or I’d never ride on an elevator again.

8. Bonkers crazypants word salads

Via Tom Nichols at the Atlantic, describing Trump:

When Trump is on TV a lot, his approval goes down. When he’s in hiding and his surrogates are rearranging his bonkers crazypants word salads into something like real thoughts, his approval goes up.

Thanks to the Harris-Walz campaign, it’s starting to look like mainstream media outlets are finally telling it like it is about Trump. And what’s wild about it is that I’m not sure this would have worked until now, though I wish it had started much sooner.