More for the "bro-" files: "brony"

[Ben Zimmer]

On Tue, Dec 20, 2011 at 7:08 AM, Neal Whitman <nwhitman at ameritech.net> wrote:
>
> Wow, I must not have been paying attention, because I missed all these! (Although
> it seems to have been edited out of the Boston Globe column.)

Which column? MIne has: "New online subcultures reveled in
self-conscious weirdness: Witness the _bronies_, grown male fans of
the “My Little Pony” franchise." Erin's has: "Perhaps the most
unlikely bro- blend is Bronies, used to refer to male fans of the “My
Little Pony” television cartoon and toys--a phenomenon whose
surprising existence was recently reported in The Wall Street
Journal."


> On Dec 20, 2011, at 1:50 AM, Arnold Zwicky wrote:
> >
> > On Dec 19, 2011, at 10:30 PM, Ben Zimmer wrote:
> >>
> >> On Tue, Dec 20, 2011 at 12:02 AM, Neal Whitman wrote:
> >>>
> >>> My son told me about "bronies", i.e. grown male fans of My Little Pony. More
> >>> information at:
> >>> http://www.wired.com/underwire/2011/06/bronies-my-little-ponys/
> >>> http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=bronies
> >>> http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203707504577012141105109140.html
> >>
> >> Noted by Larry back in September:
> >>
> >> http://listserv.linguistlist.org/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind1109C&L=ADS-L&P=R8190
> >>
> >> ...who suggested it was a "a viable 'least likely to succeed'
> >> candidate" for ADS WOTY. I included it on my WOTY nominee list for its
> >> sheer oddity:
> >>
> >> http://www.visualthesaurus.com/cm/wordroutes/3066/
> >> http://www.bostonglobe.com/ideas/2011/12/18/what-talked-about/a3UP8sPAFziCmRnLIOjtcJ/story.html
> >>
> >> See also Erin McKean on brofixing:
> >>
> >> http://www.bostonglobe.com/ideas/2011/12/02/the-secret-language-bros/kd1q6tKQxO15hxMYWQSirO/story.html
> >>
> >>> I find the portmanteau "brony" interesting because in words like "bromance"
> >>> (and in most other portmanteau and compound nouns) the second element is the
> >>> head: A bromance is a kind of romance; a motel is a kind of hotel. In
> >>> contrast, a brony is not a kind of pony, but a kind of bro.
> >
> > and briefly noted here:
> >
> > http://arnoldzwicky.wordpress.com/2011/09/20/dubious-bromanteau/
> >

--
Ben Zimmer
http://benzimmer.com/

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