least likely to succeed? really?

[ronbutters at AOL.COM]

Stunt Dick has been around for years, growing out of the pornography industry. A S.D. is the erect penis of a person who is employed to have his groin used in close-ups when the star's member fails to stand up as needed. Should have been "most outrageous word of 1989 had ADS been doing the Word of the Year festival back then.
Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

-----Original Message-----
From: Wilson Gray <hwgray at gmail.com>
Date: Sat, 9 Jan 2010 21:16:51
To: <ronbutters at aol.com>
Subject: Re: least likely to succeed? really?

Ron's use of "stunt word" reminds me of something that I heard back in
the '80's.

A now-forgotten, black TV actor, guesting on some now-forgotten show,
was explaining how it came to pass that he had lost weight:

"When I saw myself on the show, I said, 'That can't be *my* ass! It
must be a_stunt butt_!"

So far,_stunt butt_ and_stunt word_ are the only two instances of
this that I've come across in the wild. I leave the Googling - or
Microsoft- Binging, as may be preferred - as an exercise for the
reader.

-Wilson

On Sat, Jan 9, 2010 at 10:59 AM,  <ronbutters at aol.com> wrote:
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       ronbutters at AOL.COM
> Subject:      Re: least likely to succeed? really?
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> OK, thanks for the data. Maybe "most unnecessary" would have been a better choice. But I do see now that people are sometimes using TRUTHINESS as something other than a stunt word. See, for example, <http://gawker.com/5407316/palins-camp-fights-back-over-accusations-of-truthiness-in-going-rogue>.  Maybe ADS+Merriam+Colbert were actually successful in adding the word to commonplace vocabulary.
> ------Original Message------
> From: Benjamin Zimmer
> Sender: ADS-L
> To: ADS-L
> ReplyTo: ADS-L
> Subject: Re: [ADS-L] least likely to succeed? really?
> Sent: Jan 9, 2010 9:13 AM
>
> On Sat, Jan 9, 2010 at 8:48 AM,  <ronbutters at aol.com> wrote:
>>
>> I agree with Larry that the results with respect to "least likely to succeed" are
>> ridiculous.  But recall "Bush lips" and "truthiness" and a host of other "words"
>>  that the Circus in past years recognized as winners for various categories,
>> all of which would have done best as "least likely to succeed."  This year's
>> choices were generally no sillier than those of other years--and equally
>> forgettable.
>
> I know Ron is no fan of "truthiness", but it has in fact shown some
> staying power since '05. A check on Google News shows 46 news articles
> using "truthiness" in the last month alone:
>
> http://news.google.com/news/search?q=truthiness
>
> That's more than can be said for, say, "plutoed", which only shows up
> in articles about ADS WOTY. :->
>
>
> --Ben Zimmer
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>
>
> Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>



--
-Wilson
–––
All say, "How hard it is that we have to die!"––a strange complaint to
come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
–Mark Twain

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