NTMP 110: Potato Pose

Gesundheit!

New-To-Me Phrases, May 19, 2024

BEYHAW * Padiddle * Mountain spurge * Columbusing * ACHOO Syndrome * Stanky Bean * Banana pose

Photo of what I believe is a seal by karlheinz_eckhardt Eckhardt on Unsplash

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The Phrases, With Context

This week we have chill pinnipeds, plant ejaculate, hair clip appropriation, and more.

Let’s get to it!

1. BEYHAW

People claiming Beyoncé isn’t country are either ignorant of her Southern roots and country music’s roots in Black music and culture or they’re being intentionally obtuse (or worse). Country music isn’t my thing but I’m digging Cowboy Carter and I am definitely into how Bey decided to kick down the saloon door and waltz in twanging. I saw this video on Instagram with the caption BEYHAW and how can you not love this? This account is worth following; (they’re also on TikTok); the choreography and performances are amazing.

2. Padiddle

This was the answer to the clue “Game played on a road trip” in the April 13th edition of the NYT crossword. I’d never heard of it. Then the other day, the creators of Connections offered up two other “classic party” games that I’d never heard of: Werewolf and Fishbowl.

Where the hell was I when these games were being played? Did I go to all of the wrong parties, or was I not invited to the right ones? Probably.

The Oxford English Dictionary defines padiddle, which appears to have originated in the late 1940s, thusly:

An exclamation shouted in a game by the first of a group of people who spots a motor vehicle with only one working headlight, this person being entitled variously to kiss or hit the others.

I remember playing Slug Bug, where you’d see a VW Bug and yell “Slug Bug [color of car]!” and hit the person nearest to you. Personally, I don’t want my traveling companions to hit me, and vice versa. Maybe this is why I don’t get invited to parties.

3. Mountain spurge

Because I, an idiot, bought a house with SEVERAL massive perennial beds that need constant weeding, I’m researching native plants and invasive weeds like it’s my job. I came across the phrase mountain spurge, a groundcover plant native to the southeastern U.S., and all I have to say about it is that the word spurge is hilarious.

4. Columbusing

During a discussion with my friend Kelly about the hateable phrase girl dinner, she mentioned that Gen Z likes to “Columbus” trends while thinking they invented them. See also: Butterfly hair clips, which are apparently back in style. I had iridescent pastel ones in the ‘90s. Maybe this is why I didn’t get invited to parties.

I looked up Columbusing and the phrase also has a narrower use to reference white people adopting “trends” that actually originated from other cultures.

5. ACHOO Syndrome

Found via

type click type

by Brian Grubb, ACHOO Syndrome stands for Autosomal Dominant Compelling Helioopthalmic Outburst Syndrome, or sneezing when exposed to bright light, especially sunlight. It’s also known as photic sneezing, according to the NIH Library of Medicine. Two of my kids do this, and I’ve always called it sun sneezing. Pun intended: Bless whoever developed this acronym.

6. Stanky Bean

This week Google started serving up their shitty AI search summaries, which appear as the top result when you search for things. It’s got me so annoyed I’m considering switching search engines. AI is so unreliable, culturally biased, and grifty that I do not want it serving up anything, let alone extremely sus summaries of search results. God, I hate these tech bro assholes so much.

This gives me an excuse to use my favorite GIF of all time, from one of my favorite shows of all time, Orphan Black:

This tweet sums up my feelings about AI as it’s currently being foisted upon us:

Via @QuinnCat13 on Twitter

Part of their business model literally involves theft of works that took creators YEARS across CAREERS and LIFETIMES to make, and then having the audacity to gatekeep that stolen data to bill people for access to their AI tools. “We need the rights to scrape entire libraries of the life’s work of every artist or our product won’t work.” Then build a better product, or pay up, motherfuckers.

Despite my seething rage, people keep telling me there are good uses for AI. Mea culpa, I found one. My pal Randal, a longtime NTMP reader, shared a post mentioning the work of AI humorist Janelle Shane’s hilarious AI-generated paint colors from 2017, with a 2022 update:

Image via JanelleShane.com

This small sampling is a veritable feast of new-to-me phrases and I love them so much. Shane is a research scientist who also runs a blog called AI Weirdness. She wrote a book about her work with AI, which appears to be driven by curiosity and humanity with care for its impact—imagine that.

7. Banana pose

This is not a yoga OR a sex thing (that I’m aware of). I saw a meme that said seals do something called banana pose when they’re happy.

It looks like this:

Photo by Steve Adams on Unsplash

According to the Sea Coast Science Center in Rye, New Hampshire—a place I would absolutely visit—banana pose is not just for happy moods; it’s also a form of temperature regulation. Click that link for more extremely cute pics of an adolescent seal in banana pose. Toddlers also do banana pose, but as an act of civil disobedience to prevent weary parents from retrieving them from the floor where they are screaming because you gave them the red sippy cup instead of the blue one. IYKYK.

While sourcing images for this phrase, I noticed a thing that often happens in Unsplash, where inaccurate tags are included with a photo, probably to give it broader exposure. So a photo of a bison will also have a “cow” tag even though a bison is not a cow. The seal images I found were also tagged sea lion, which got me wondering what the difference was between the two.

NOAA to the rescue:

Sea lions are brown, bark loudly, "walk" on land using their large flippers and have visible ear flaps. Seals have small flippers, wriggle on their bellies on land, and lack visible ear flaps.

Tag yourself: I’m definitely a seal.

Bonus Bits

1. So I’m shopping for a shower squeegee, and

But yes, let’s let AI replace writers. I’m sure it will work out just fine.

2. And the NTMP “Most Gloriously Petty” Award Goes to

Image via Doug Aoki, @nantanreikan on Twitter - (note my paltry-in-comparison level of petty in refusing to call that hellsite X)

I’m sure this dude is probably some sort of mulleted anti-gubmint J6er, but I’m choosing not to care because this level of trolling is exquisite. One of my Hag friends says she knows that neighborhood and I begged her to get a thumbs-up selfie in front of it. Stay tuned for an update.

That’s it for this week! Remember to keep making it weird and stay furiously curious.

I wrote this entire newsletter while in banana pose,

Toni