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

[Dan Goncharoff]

Is this the Jordan shot that has become (in silhouette) the emblem of the NBA?
DanG



On Wed, Feb 1, 2012 at 3:12 AM, Ben Zimmer
<bgzimmer at babel.ling.upenn.edu> wrote:
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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Ben Zimmer <bgzimmer at BABEL.LING.UPENN.EDU>
> Subject:      Re: "tacogate"; "posterize"; "the full Mozgov"
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> On Tue, Jan 31, 2012 at 10:15 AM, Laurence Horn wrote:
>>
>> 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
>
> I looked into "posterize" a few years ago, and the earliest I found at
> the time was this WaPo article by Michael Wilbon, about Michael
> Jordan's famous shot in Game 2 of the '91 Finals (a dunk that became a
> layup to avoid Sam Perkins):
>
> ---
> http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/sports/nba/longterm/jordan/articles/layup91.htm
> Great Shot! Jordan's Best Amazingly Goes One Better
> By Michael Wilbon
> Washington Post Staff Writer
> Friday, June 7, 1991; Page D01
> ...
> There was no indication Perkins would jump and attempt a block.
> Probably, Perkins just wanted to get out of the way and not be
> "posterized," which is what happens when the dunkee is humiliated by
> the dunker.
> ...
> Only one other such spectacular shot in a game of consequence comes to
> mind, the time in the 1980 NBA finals when Julius Erving wrapped
> himself around the basket, going out of bounds while in the air in the
> process, and posterized Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Mark Landsberger with
> a reverse one-hand flip off the glass.
> ---
>
> I also found a variant, "poster" as a verb, attested from 1993.
>
> --bgz
>
> --
> Ben Zimmer
> http://benzimmer.com/
>
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