Grant Barrett, a lexicographer who specializes in slang and new words recently wrote a column in the NY Times about some of the buzz words of 2008. “Maverick”, “Obamanation”, and “Lipstick on a pig” all made the list, thanks to the chaos of the political season.
My personal favorite is “nuke the fridge”:
“To ruin a movie franchise; usually attributed to the arrogance of a successful producer or director. The term was coined based on a scene in the latest Indiana Jones movie, in which the hero survives a nuclear blast by hiding in a refrigerator. The term is patterned after jump the shark, coined a few years ago to refer to anything that had peaked in popularity or quality and was now on a downward slide toward ridiculousness and irrelevancy.”
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