"tacogate"; "posterize"; "the full Mozgov"

Laurence Horn laurence.horn at YALE.EDU
Tue Jan 31 15:15:38 UTC 2012


The former is the inevitable appellation for the recent scandal involving the systematic pattern (and subsequent coverup) of the East Haven, CT police in discriminating against and roughing up Latino residents without cause, which has been known about for a while but (according to a federal inquiry) misrepresented by the local authorities.  The "tacogate" label--
http://www.yaledailynews.com/news/2012/jan/30/cross-campus-13012/
--refers to the comment made by Mayor Maturo when asked what he planned to do to help reassure the Latino community after the revelations came out, and he responded that he would maybe have some tacos for dinner.  

The latter refers to the result of a particularly robust dunk in basketball.  The dunker rises up high and embarrasses the defensive player by slamming the ball into the net over him.  The hapless dunkee is said to be "posterized". (Not in the OED, which has an irrelevant sense for the word.)  Here's ud:

posterize:
a Basketball term meaning to embarrass some one usually while slamming the ball over them. It refers to the guy whos being dunked on in basketball posters.
"Wow that guy just got posterized!"

This is also in the recent news because of something that occurred in one of last night's games…well, you can see it on YouTube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AbyOevVAYQI

A related item that came up in the discussion of the Griffin dunk is "the full Mozgov", with which I was previously unfamiliar, but it can be googled.  (Just the first hit for "full Mozgov" please.)

LH
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