brokebackly

[Benjamin Zimmer]

And now the adverb...

"After they get cut, they hug very manfully and brokebackly for a
million years and then cry like babies, and it is awesome and very
sweet and very sad."
http://www.televisionwithoutpity.com/story.cgi?show=89&story=8837

This is about some cowboyish contestants on American Idol (at least
one of whom is an actual cowboy). Before they got cut, the show
featured footage of them in a spoof of the "Brokeback Mountain"
trailer, retitled "Brokenote Mountain". (This managed to dance around
the whole issue of the sexuality of the contestants while still
providing an obvious subtext.)

Currently Google finds only one hit for "brokebackly", in the form
"brokebackly yours" (page doesn't load, but it looks like it's the
diary entry of someone who's seen "Brokeback Mountain" four times).


--Ben Zimmer

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The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org