the return of adjectival "butthole"

[Ben Zimmer]

Sixty-five years after "Archie", "butthole" is once again available
for predicative use -- or at least "tight/loose butthole". Here's
Slate on the Comedy Central show "Workaholics":

http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/television/2012/05/comedy_central_s_workaholics_interview_with_adam_devine_and_anders_holm_.html
The show’s real-life roots are especially evident in the guys’
language, a homegrown patois that mixes gangsta, frat, and playground
slang to glorious effect. Some of their words were created to please
network censors—the guys say “fug” and “shib”—but many serve no
purpose other than as inside jokes for close viewers. Instead of
“let’s go,” they say “S’go.” When someone says something dumb, Anders
will strike the base of the offender’s neck and declare, “That’s a
chop!” Adam pronounces “FYI” as “fwi.” Workaholics’ fans—it gets fewer
than 2 million viewers per episode, but thankfully for the show’s
future, most of those are advertiser-coveted young men—tend to pick up
the show’s lingo and run with it online, turning some of their
coinages into viral hits. The biggest of these is “loose butthole,” an
adjective designating something awful, and its opposite, “tight
butthole.” (Per the show’s Tumblr*, here are a couple ways to use
these in a sentence: “Terrance Malick’s cinematography is completely
Tight Butthole,” or “I find the bombastic sound mixing of a Michael
Bay film to be entirely Loose Butthole.”)

* http://workaholics.tumblr.com/post/7805109796/wordaholics-tight-loose-butthole

--bgz

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

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