empretzeled

[Benjamin Zimmer]

On Thu, May 21, 2009 at 4:33 PM, Wilson Gray wrote:
>
> WTF does it mean: "empretzeled"? I'm not familiar with the relevant
> dialect of English.

Convoluted, contorted, tangled, twisted... like a pretzel.



> On Wed, May 20, 2009 at 5:30 PM, David A. Daniel <dad at pokerwiz.com> wrote:
> >
> > From that same review: "...but "Terminator Salvation" seems more like a
> > throwback than a harbinger of things to come." OMFG, to quote Gossip Girl.
> > How can one then take "empretzeled" seriously? We are simply presented with
> > an ignoramus who has access to a key board and, apparently, gets paid to
> > beat upon it. Is his usage worthy of note for those who track the progress
> > of the Mother Tongue? Sadly, perhaps it is.
> >
> >
> >
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: American Dialect Society [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] On Behalf Of
> > Benjamin Zimmer
> > Sent: Wednesday, May 20, 2009 4:49 PM
> > To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
> > Subject: empretzeled
> >
> >
> >
> > From A.O. Scott's review of "Terminator Salvation" in the New  York Times:
> >
> > ---
> > http://movies.nytimes.com/2009/05/21/movies/21term.html
> > A detailed recap of the franchise's empretzeled chronology will not be
> > possible here.
> > ---
> >
> > The word has been used a couple of times by Time Magazine columnist
> > Joe Klein. He used it in a 2004 column and again last year on the
> > Swampland blog (though he spelled it "empretzled" that time):
> >
> > ---
> > http://www.time.com/time/election2004/columnist/klein/article/0,18471,692822
> > ,00.html
> > "Tearing Kerry Down" (Sep. 4, 2004)
> > The attacks on Kerry ranged from the reasonable-he certainly has
> > empretzeled himself on Iraq-to the outrageous: Zell Miller's assertion
> > that Kerry would take his orders from Paris.
> > ---
> > http://swampland.blogs.time.com/2008/10/06/embarracuda/
> > "Embarracuda" (Oct. 6, 2008)
> > I mean, don't the hateful doings at Palin's church and Hannity's
> > perfidy deserve a lengthy exegesis from Pete Wehner or Jennifer Rubin
> > or one of the other empretzled ideologues over at Commentary?
> > ---
> >
> > Norman Mailer also once used the word, in his preface to _First
> > Flowering: The Best of the Harvard Advocate_ (1977) -- republished in
> > _The Harvard Book_ (William Bentinck-Smith, ed. 1982) and the Mailer
> > anthology _The Time of Our Time_ (1999):
> >
> > ---
> > It was only on the next day, after the claims of liars had been
> > checked against the quiet evidence of reliable witnesses who had found
> > themselves analogously empretzeled in every room and on the stairs,
> > that the news came back.
> > ---
> >
> > --Ben Zimmer

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