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Popular culture and the "O" suffix

David Hepworth's picture

Is it just an old misanthrope like me or does anybody else wince when he comes across examples of perfectly serviceable words chopped into two in order to weld on the letter "O" in a doomed effort to make the word seem more matey? Particularly skin-crawling examples include:
Crimbo - attempt to refer to ancient festival of Nativity without making anyone think of anything much more exalted than Baileys Irish Cream.
Glasto - the original name of this town is one of the most savourable, beautiful place names in the English language. Abbreviated in this fashion it sounds like the nickname of a roadie for Cud.
Lambo - the Italian manufacturer of obscenely expensive, high performance vehicles is commonly abbreviated by Jeremy Clarkson and other saloon bar blowhards to sound like a plumber's wrench. "Darren, go to the van and get me the lambo, will you?"
Any more people would like to get off their chest? And don't stray into the nasty Australian habit of putting "ie" at the end of words. That's for another time.

0

Combo, for combination

And anyone who uses "Beat Combo" on here should be barred and beaten.

1
kb | 23 January 2008 - 4:43pm

JEBO

A couple of years ago at the Royal Albert Hall I saw an excellent band supporting Genesis tribute band The Musical Box (stop that now; they were stunningly good and worth every penny of the £50 ticket price). Sadly the name of the support band was and remains JEBO. I bought their CD but I'm sure it is the awful name that has stopped me liking it.

0
Neil Jung | 17 February 2008 - 9:15pm

Too right! Distro?

I currently work for an American company, and during early conversations they lost me completely by regularly referring to the "distro" - e.g. I'll let this distro know, I'll update the distro tomorrow etc. Eventually I worked out it means "distribution list" as in for the circulation of emails.....ARRRRGH

0
Twangothan | 23 January 2008 - 4:48pm

I want to...

kill myself after reading that. That is so sad. Poor you, having to listen to that all day.

0
Patrick Crowther | 23 January 2008 - 5:09pm

I am like totally

going to start using distro.

Thankso.

0
Slick | 12 July 2011 - 1:56pm

I'm, like, hating 'Jacko'

Makes the painted, bewigged nutcase sound like your mate from the pub. Overly chummy and wrong.

0
Graham Johns | 23 January 2008 - 4:55pm

Oh yes

"Jacko" is the unmistakable mark of the arriviste. It was only introduced long after he became a superstar.

0
David Hepworth | 23 January 2008 - 5:07pm

Surely it arrived alongside...

wacko

0
Patrick Crowther | 23 January 2008 - 5:25pm

And...

Ho

0
Patrick Crowther | 23 January 2008 - 4:58pm

A

guitarist I used to know called his instrument a 'Gibbo', which I thought was particularly demeaning for such an august brand.

Not sure it works too well with your name either, does it Heppo?

I believe Mr. Williams sometimes suffers 'Robbo' from the red tops too. Yuck.

0
Oeufman | 23 January 2008 - 5:51pm

Gibbie

Similarly I have heard "Gibbie" which is as bad, and even worse, "git box" as a generic term for a guitar. Tossers.

0
Twangothan | 23 January 2008 - 6:21pm

as eny fule know

'tis "Axe".

0
Vulpes Vulpes | 24 January 2008 - 10:01am

Only if

you're 16, spotty and dream of being in Metallica.

0
Oeufman | 24 January 2008 - 10:03am

Too funny

....Heppo - and of course Ello, LO to his friends, unlimited opportunities for amusement of the "'Ello Ello" variety etc. Tee hee.

0
Twangothan | 23 January 2008 - 7:22pm

Twat

I hate it when a twat who looks like Jamie Oliver (or who is actually Jamie Oliver) says "coolio". This usally happens when a group of twats have arranged to go for some "scoops".

1
Jamie_Bowman | 23 January 2008 - 6:08pm

The originator...

0
Patrick Crowther | 23 January 2008 - 6:19pm

A picture tells a thousand words

Dear oh dear.

0
Twangothan | 23 January 2008 - 6:22pm

Not so.

Twatty picture, but a great rapper in his day. A cornerstone of the very marvellous "Tommy Boy's Greatest Beats" compilation.

0
Bob | 13 July 2011 - 12:29pm

And

that, children, is what happens when you stick your fingers in the socket.

0
Oeufman | 23 January 2008 - 6:23pm

Two-and-a-half years later...

My mother can get better results from Photoshop than that, and she's just been registered blind. (All true, unfortunately.)

1
Wardour | 12 July 2011 - 12:18am

I can heartily recommend his cookbook

But if you want to talk about Coolio in a bad Photoshop nightmare...

0
simonperrins | 13 July 2011 - 1:45pm

Glasto

Glastonbury is indeed a wonderful country town and the Tor is a delightfully atmospheric place. Glasto is a nasty over-commercialised circus of the average for the average, at least on the main stages. (I accept that the distant fields retain an aura from greater days.) Just about befitting a roady from Cud, methinks.
Lambo had me confused for a minute; I thought you were referring to the excellent advertisents for sheep and cow flesh, with the witty cartoon cricketers.

0
Retropath2 | 23 January 2008 - 6:32pm

LOL!

"I thought you were referring to the excellent advertisents for sheep and cow flesh, with the witty cartoon cricketers"

genius line.

0
Patrick Crowther | 23 January 2008 - 6:36pm

LOL!

LOL! is starting to do my head in actually

0
Stephen G | 23 January 2008 - 11:57pm

Yes...

you do have a point... but it is a convenient way of saying you find something funny.

0
Patrick Crowther | 24 January 2008 - 12:59am

Fair Enough

Actually I didn't know what it meant until quite recently and I wondered why Mr Creme of 10CC was getting all these mentions...

0
Stephen G | 24 January 2008 - 1:12am

That is very funny

you see... it's so much easier writing LO...

0
Patrick Crowther | 24 January 2008 - 8:38am

LOL confusion

Until relatively recently my wife thought "LOL" meant Lots of Love. Tricky things these acronyms...

0
Red Umpire | 24 January 2008 - 9:46am

So did I

Until a second ago. Not that I ever thought of it.

0
David Hepworth | 24 January 2008 - 1:22pm

Up till fairly recently...

... I thought LOL was a very aggressive "Learn Our Language." Seriously.

0
ganglesprocket | 12 July 2011 - 9:37am

ROFLCOPTERS*

:-D < wide mouth smiley emoticon >

* This term has already gone the way of "chick", "cat" and "groovy".

0
Glenbervie | 12 July 2011 - 11:35am

And that makes three of us...

I used to upload photographs on a photo sharing website and this guy kept writing "LOL" in his messages. I was rather confused as to why he was being so overly friendly, until I asked him and he explained all.

0
Patrick Crowther | 24 January 2008 - 1:27pm

You've gotta be quick these days

Keep up, fellas - LOL is on the way out. There's a growing movement to replace it with the much more sensible LOI (laughing on the inside).

0
Fraser Lewry | 24 January 2008 - 1:34pm

LOIS

would be much better.

0
Patrick Crowther | 24 January 2008 - 1:42pm

As long as...

...ROTFLMAO never becomes acceptable currency outside all but the spoddiest of websites.

0
Red Umpire | 24 January 2008 - 1:46pm

Quite

right.

0
Fraser Lewry | 24 January 2008 - 1:50pm

that worked, dinnit?

0
badartdog | 12 July 2011 - 8:41pm

Ha-ha!

One more letter, a hyphen and an exclamation mark. Works for me. It's actually recognisable as a word, too. If you find something extra-funny, you can add another -ha. And if you're being sarkarstic, you can leave off the exclamation mark. Isn't language wonderful!

0
geebee | 12 July 2011 - 12:49pm

"Uni"

"Uni".
Anyone who uses the ghastly word is toothickfor.
But then I suppose "Former Useless Polytethnic" is a bit of mouthful

0
Richard Lowe | 23 January 2008 - 7:58pm

I loathe "uni"

But it's what everybody uses, whether they're at Cambridge or the University of South Heckmondwike.

0
David Hepworth | 23 January 2008 - 8:13pm

Sorry

I used it in a post a couple of days ago to save the typing of "versity". Otherwise not a word that generally crops up in my day to day conversation.
However David, does this prohibition extend to Professor Stanley Unwin who liked to stick a few O's on the end of words?

0
Carl Parker | 24 January 2008 - 9:36am

University

I'm in the final year of my degree and have never once referred to the establishment in question as "uni". However, I often seem that little bit more tired than many of the other students: maybe those extra three syllables are starting to take their toll.

0
Lucas Hare | 24 January 2008 - 8:35am

Why Thank You

for the mention of Heckmondwike. As its nickname is Hecky maybe I can refer to it as Hecko.

0
hubertrawlinson | 11 July 2011 - 7:04pm

It's used these days

by prospective or actual students who don't really value it because everyone can go to 'uni' now. In the olden days, when 2% of the population went, it was deemed an honour and a privilege and was thus held in esteem. No one would have thought of debasing it with a diminutive because people felt privileged to go there. In these days of equal opportunities and democritisation, Uncle Tom Cobley and all have felt it their right to go and, in order to accommodate them, standards have dropped to the extent that, even if you can barely write English, you can get a place.

The fruits of this are evident in journalism, where a line in The Observer the other week read "Where did people get so bored of where they are going..."

"I may go to uni but I may go on a gap year or I may loll around playing my X-Box. 'S'all the same to me."

I should add that refreshment has been taken and I haven't got the energy to enter into a debate or verbal fisticuffs.

0
hazzard | 11 July 2011 - 11:14pm

I'm going to bite anyway

I went to university from 2005 to 2008. I worked extremely hard to get there, and now have a BSc in Mathematics from one of the best universities in the country. *dons class warrior hat* I went to a comprehensive school and took two jobs while studying in order to pay my way through my studies.

While I was there, I referred to my place of education as "uni." There was me thinking it was because it was the 21st Century and a shortening of the word "university." Many thanks for enlightening me that it was because I'm a lazy, X-Box playing imbecile with a sense of entitlement who can barely write English anyway.

Oh, and I don't care how pissed you are, I don't see that as a valid excuse for such prejudiced generalisations.

1
Joe R | 12 July 2011 - 9:34am

Not pissed

but refreshed by a couple of glasses of wine. All power to your elbow, Joe, for your achievement: you read for a meaningful degree at a top university. My comments were not really fuelled by prejudice, but by information I've read and young people with whom I've come in contact. For every hard working graduate like you there are many who drift to university to take a degree in something that would formerly have been taught at a polytechnic, and courses have been designed for those who are not academically able to read for an academic degree. I did read about one university which felt it necessary to offer a course in simple grammar because many of its undergraduates didn't know how to write English (and I'm not talking here about foreign students).

Blair's attempt to offer everyone a university education might have been well meant but was ultimately flawed, in that university isn't necessarily best suited to everyone and we now have a situation where graduates are unable to find jobs and plumbers are making a very good living.

A quote from The Guardian over a year ago:
'A leading scientist has attacked the government for funding students doing "Mickey Mouse" degrees – and called for the money to be spent on science instead.

Dr Richard Pike, chief executive of the Royal Society of Chemistry, said degrees in celebrity journalism, drama combined with waste management, and international football business management – all of which exist – should be "kicked into touch".'

In exactly the same way that the easy availability of recorded music has led to its devaluing (how can someone with 13,000 tracks on their mp3 player really value each one?) so the ease of access hitherto to university has meant a greater dropout rate than in previous generations and a concomitant devaluing, for many, of a university education.

I should also add that many years ago, if you got a place at university, you grabbed it. These days the decision is sometimes "Should I go or should I have a gap year?", which to me indicates a lack of urgency or excitement because such an achievement, for many, isn't what it used to be. Oh, and my background is very much 'working class'.

1
hazzard | 12 July 2011 - 11:26am

RIGHT, WELL IN THAT CASE,

I, er... totally agree with you.

Apologies for jumping down your throat but I just thought you were tarring all students with the same brush. Everything you've just written I'd certainly agree with in some cases, but for me, and a lot of people I know, that certainly isn't the case. I'm not sure why I tried to bring class into it either - I'm too English for my own good sometimes.

Even as a lentil-munching, yoghurt-knitting, pacifist leftie, I'll acknowledge that the Blair government royally ballsed up higher education. Half the point of uni (I'm going to keep calling it that by the way *winking emoticon*) is that it has some degree of exclusivity and it isn't for everyone. Blair's aim to get 50% of 18 year olds into higher education was misguided at best, and for it to be more determined on income than aptitude (which is how it's panned out) is lunacy.

Also, thanks for not having a go at me for being so chippy. Crass generalisations about "the youth of today" are one of my pet hates, but you'd have had every right to voice your annoyance with me.

1
Joe R | 12 July 2011 - 11:45am

Not at all annoyed, Joe.

I'm very much left of centre, and my pub drinking friend Stuart (check out www.fraserwords.co.uk) is on the extreme far left. He says the socialist moral dilemma, a zen koan if you will, is the desire to give everyone equal opportunities but then be dismayed when the masses contribute to whatever type of devaluation is then created. This discussion is really for the pub, so I really don't want to go into it here, but I do agree with you, and it's a somewhat tendentious point of view, that university (;-)) "has some degree of exclusivity". Blair's, and many people's, error is to confuse equality of opportunity with equality of capability, and I feel it's unfair to try and conflate the two.

I'd also like to mention that in the past I've managed two drug and alcohol residential rehabs and worked with emotionally, materially, and culturally deprived men (and that's certainly no place for anyone who's right wing or prejudiced in any way!) and one of the rewards I've had is to help broaden the horizons of those who were extremely intelligent but whose intelligence had been devoted either to crime or otherwise totally misguided. In three cases I can recall, I persuaded (as subtly as I could) that they were far more capable than they realised and that perhaps they should consider higher education and even university. They are now reading for a BA in music, a BA in social work, and a BSc in psychology and criminology respectively, and I'm so proud of them.

0
hazzard | 12 July 2011 - 12:52pm

Thank you both, Joe and Hazzard

For giving me the oportunity to eavesdrop on a fascinating conversation and providing a masterclass in how to express yourself and your opinions without looking to attack each other at the first chance.

My cockles are warmed!

0
Cobweb Steve | 12 July 2011 - 8:32pm

Thank you, Steve.

And a warm handshake to Joe.

0
hazzard | 12 July 2011 - 8:38pm

Consider the handshake returned

Though I'm not sure I deserve much of a share in that credit. Incidentally, if anyone's interested, hazzard and I are willing to continue this conversation in a pub of your choosing for a small fee...

0
Joe R | 12 July 2011 - 10:59pm

The beer,

Skinner's Knocker, is very good in the Church House Inn in Linkinhorne in Cornwall (not connected with brewery or pub, apart from financially supporting both). The fee would have to be large enough to cover the beer.

0
hazzard | 13 July 2011 - 8:34am

If I had the technical nous

I'd send you both a virtual pint of your choice. As it stands I'm afraid it'll have to be an imaginary one. Oh sod it, have a chaser too - you deserve it.

0
Cobweb Steve | 13 July 2011 - 12:13pm

Cheers!

.

0
hazzard | 13 July 2011 - 12:26pm

Ah, the dreaming spires of South Heckmondwyke

Cream tea anyone?

0
BernkastelCues | 12 July 2011 - 10:04am

Heckmondwike's Dreaming spires

Uploaded with ImageShack.us

The view from my house, a spire of Heckmondwike (with an i not a y). Oddly enough I had a cream tea on Sunday

0
hubertrawlinson | 13 July 2011 - 12:59pm

Ah, the dreaming spires of South Heckmondwyke

Cream tea anyone?

0
BernkastelCues | 12 July 2011 - 10:04am

Oh yes please

But just the one, thanks...!

1
Red Umpire | 12 July 2011 - 1:25pm

Oi!

I went to one of those! The former North London Polytechnic! Where The Jesus And Mary Chain started a riot!

Nah, don't worry... it was a dump.

0
Patrick Crowther | 23 January 2008 - 8:48pm

But not as much of a dump as..

the former North Staffordshire Polytechnic, where I survived two years.

0
Graham_Arden | 23 January 2008 - 10:59pm

Which would have been a damn site

more attractive than Riversdale College of Technology, Aigburth, South Liverpool, which I attended sporadically. Now a housing estate, but the ghosts remain...

0
sweetleftfoot | 10 February 2008 - 6:08pm

Xmas

I hate Xmas.I won't go on but it just bugs me to hell.

2
Springer Bell | 23 January 2008 - 8:20pm

I have nightmares about Xmas...

When I was about 8, I had to play a part in a school play and had to say the word 'xmas'. Now call me a brainless trollop, but at that tender age, I didn't know that it meant 'christmas' and should be pronounced in the same way. So I pronounced it as it is written, which led to the whole audience pi**ing themselves laughing and making me feel about an inch tall.

So Xmas can go rot...

0
Patrick Crowther | 23 January 2008 - 9:03pm

I hate to snitch on colleagues but...

...some designers have a habit of calling fluorescent colours "fluoros". I bang my head against the desk silently.

0
David Hepworth | 23 January 2008 - 8:26pm

Designers

To put them in their place just call them the "paste-up lads".
Especially if they're girls.

0
Richard Lowe | 23 January 2008 - 8:56pm

Slightly off the 'o' track...

but I live in Oxford, and have heard students say "Fancy going for a cuzza?"

I believe that means 'curry'.

Nice to know that the finest academic minds in the country are being put to such good use.

0
Patrick Crowther | 23 January 2008 - 9:12pm

That actually makes me...

...want to jump off a bridge. That's hideous! Just... why? It's not an abbreviation, it has the same number of syllables, and most importantly, it makes you sound like an absolute cretin.

0
Joe R | 24 January 2008 - 9:29am

Correct.

EVERYBODY knows the correct vernacular for curry is a 'Ruby'?

0
sweetleftfoot | 10 February 2008 - 6:10pm

Story of O

All my mates call me Carto.
It's a Dublin thing.

0
Pat Carty | 23 January 2008 - 9:25pm

well

Xmas has been in use for along while it was used by monks as short hand in manuscripts, also I am worried about the Anti-Cudist trend in this strand what as one of Britains greatest live bands and kings of lion pop have have they done to deserve such ridicule?

0
Chris G | 23 January 2008 - 10:53pm

I know

but mostly its just lazy Chris.

0
Springer Bell | 24 January 2008 - 12:20am

To quote Half Man Half Biscuit,

"You call Glastonbury "Glasto"
You'd like to go there one day
When they put up the gun towers
To keep the hippies away"

0
Graham_Arden | 23 January 2008 - 10:56pm

Oh yeah

can' t beat the halfos

0
Slick | 12 July 2011 - 1:21pm

Half Man Half Biscuit

Marvellous sentiment, says it so much better than either Heppo or I were, despite sustaining/demolishing/retracting said views simultaneously.
Wouldn't 1/2M,1/2B be so much better if their song titles and lyrics promised the same standard of tune and performance. Sadly, more unlistenable claptrap ensues......

0
Retropath2 | 24 January 2008 - 8:29am

I wonder

if this phenomenon was the origin of the American Tivo system.

0
Lucas Hare | 24 January 2008 - 8:36am

The name

Timothy is bad enough in itself, it makes me cringe a bit. However, anybody abbreviating it to 'Timbo' should be strung up in my opinion.

Oh, and it annoys me too when Steve Lamacq is referred to as 'Lammo'

What did used to make me laugh was when Mark and Lard did their Radio 1 show and used to add -o onto people's names to make it sound like they were matey with everyone.

"Craig Thompson from Dunstable's emailed in."
"Ah, Thommo! How's he these days?"

0
Joe R | 24 January 2008 - 9:32am

Return of Combo

Can I reclaim 'combo'? It's a great word.

I'll swap it for Beemer. Or Duffo.

0
Paul | 24 January 2008 - 12:12pm

Brillo, deffo and boggo

Brillo always irritated me - I had a girlfriend once who said it all the time "brillo this, brillo that". Deffo, however, is fine with me. Deffo.

Any advance on "boggo" as in "boggo simple"?

0
Twangothan | 24 January 2008 - 1:03pm

Was...

Biffo the bear's monicker short for something then?

0
Patrick Crowther | 24 January 2008 - 1:11pm

Yup

Lord Nathaniel Edward George Biphomere de Gant, Earl of Hepworth, second Duke of Ellen

But he was skint, hence Biffo the Bare

0
Glenbervie | 11 July 2011 - 8:24pm

"it was like" "and I'm like" and urbanisation

I can't stand the 'Valley Girl' voice used for any teeny tale.

And where did the 'urban' accent come from? Which applied to the above would read "It wuz lak" "'n am lak"

Can I blame Tim (Roland Rat reborn) Westwood?

0
Mondo | 24 January 2008 - 1:23pm

I confess....

Sorry David, I've just remembered that in our house, we don't pop in to Sainsburys, we go to Sainso's... (justification: maybe it's cos it rhymes with our other choices, Tesco's and Waitrose).

0
kb | 24 January 2008 - 2:45pm

Surely

That's Waitro's?

1
Red Umpire | 24 January 2008 - 3:10pm

For your info

there's nowt wrong with vino.

Innit.

0
Vulpes Vulpes | 24 January 2008 - 3:21pm

Unless

you end up a wino

1
Sven Garlic | 24 January 2008 - 5:01pm

tip:

you lot should probably steer clear of Australia. I've been here 8 months and I'm beginning to forget that it's not a rule of the English language that nouns must end in a vowel.

My name was Nick when I boarded the plane at Heathrow - by the time I touched down in Sydney, it had apparently become 'Nicko'.

And let's not forget the likes of 'bottle-o' (off licence to you and me...)

0
Nick | 25 January 2008 - 7:00am

Sarvo

Apparently, "sarvo" is used by Australian's meaning "this afternoon". Absolutely vile.

0
Carl | 25 January 2008 - 1:44pm

Vile is a bit strong?

It's only like an antipodean twist on Cockney rhyming slang?

It could be argued it's language evolution in action?

The thing some Australians do that really bugs me?

It doesn't matter what sentence they speak? It doesn't matter if it's interrogative at all? Every sentence ends like a question?

Do you know what I mean.

0
Vulpes Vulpes | 25 January 2008 - 2:26pm

Upspeak

This probably originated in the Australian dialect, and it occurs in American some times. This I will concede is part of the vernacular and entirely forgivable. However, for some ten years now it's been a staple in this country too. At its very root is insecurity - are you interested in the information I'm giving you? If I make it sound like a question will it make me seem more conversational? - but it's just plain irritating on every front. To be honest, I don't think it's as bad now as it was in, say, 1998.

0
Lucas Hare | 25 January 2008 - 2:52pm

German influence?

My mate Ted has lived in Germany for the best part of 20 years. When he comes back here his English sentences tend to end that way. When he's had a couple of drinks his sentences also become dreadfully convoluted with the verb ending up at the end.

0
Carl Parker | 26 January 2008 - 5:29pm

Like this?

My mate Ted in Germany for the best part of 20 years has lived. When back here he comes his English sentences that way tend to end. When couple of drinks he's had his sentences also dreadfully convoluted become with the verb at the end ending up.

1
Glenbervie | 11 July 2011 - 8:28pm

At this

out loud I laughed.

0
hazzard | 11 July 2011 - 11:20pm

For reference

0
illuminatus | 13 July 2011 - 2:28pm

have we done...

panto and Bono?

0
James Blast | 25 January 2008 - 3:07pm

Dear old Bonio......

so much fun before he lost his "i".......

0
Retropath2 | 25 January 2008 - 3:41pm

U2's behind you!

Oh no they aren't!

Oh yes they are!

Oh no they aren't!

Oh yes they are!

0
Vulpes Vulpes | 25 January 2008 - 6:53pm

You have...

the edge on me in the humour department.

0
Patrick Crowther | 25 January 2008 - 7:08pm

Or indeed...

Balerno, Pitsligo, New Pitsligo, Aberlemno, Monboddo, or since this is a music site, the Bonny Lass of Fyvie-o? And then there's the Irish & Welsh...

0
Glenbervie | 11 July 2011 - 8:32pm

Ronaldo or Clydenio?

Ask Rob.

0
Vulpes Vulpes | 25 January 2008 - 8:20pm

The true taste of Manchester

As with many things, it was a Mancunian that did it first...

http://www.hatads.org.uk/review/vimto.jpg

0
Producer Matt | 28 January 2008 - 12:50pm

Mr Hepworth, you're bringing out the Lynn Truss in us...

All this from the man who introduced the "Hora" to our collective vernacular....

And wasn't it Messrs. Hepworth and Ellen who were fairly instrumental in bringing "Macca" to the popular parlance?

0
Nick | 29 January 2008 - 7:38am

Ball park, infrastructure...

... bench mark, touch base with. We call them wa*k words in my office. Awful.

0
laddie | 29 January 2008 - 11:23am

Stepping up to the Plate

Helicoptor View, Win Win......Bullshit Bingo. Fantastic game!

0
Springer Bell | 29 January 2008 - 3:20pm

Bullshit Bingo!

A game that really pushed the envelope. Great memories. Gave that one the Full Metal Jacket a few times.

0
sweetleftfoot | 10 February 2008 - 6:15pm

Buzz Words

Worked for a company in the 80s when buzzwords were the thing. The Area Manager used every conceivable buzzword and thought he was super cool so a few of us started using made up ones to see if he would adopt them. In a business related note to him i asked him to 'run it up the flagpole and see if it swims' and guess what? You know the rest. What a twat.

0
Axekeith | 31 January 2008 - 6:01pm

Indeed

HORA is a shocker and Heppy and ELO should be ashamed of themselves. But I love it.
Richard Lowe, I always refer to Jimmy Webb as Mr Webb and never Webby. That's you (or "uzza" I suppose).
A previous poster noted "Bono" and I am keen to point out that between Hindhead and Haslemere (on the way home to The Cafe at The Walled Garden Cowdray, another plug) there is a sign to The Edge. Well I never.

0
Bruised Mike | 29 January 2008 - 10:58pm

skelmersdale

there's a part of skem called pimbo.
very odd

0
bluewool | 29 January 2008 - 11:08pm

blame the moptops

did they start it all with ringo?

0
bluewool | 29 January 2008 - 11:25pm

"It's an 'O' living thing"

Wasn't there an orchestral pop combo with the moniker ELO?

0
andy gallant | 30 January 2008 - 12:03pm

More 'O'

What about 'sicko' and, of course, Mr Orbison himself 'The Big "O"'.

0
andy gallant | 30 January 2008 - 4:16pm

Cheerios

Known only as Cheeris in my house.

0
Axekeith | 31 January 2008 - 6:02pm

JEBO

A couple of years ago at the Royal Albert Hall I saw an excellent band supporting Genesis tribute band The Musical Box (stop that now; they were stunningly good and worth every penny of the £50 ticket price). Sadly the name of the support band was and remains JEBO. I bought their CD but I'm sure it is the awful name that has stopped me liking it.

0
Neil Jung | 17 February 2008 - 9:16pm

I think we may need to revive this thread...

...it passed me by the first time, but seems worth revisiting in the wake of the Heppo/Heppy (etc...) debates of late.

I'm sure there are fresh insights and observations on the theme to be had.

I have a theory that the Irish 'take' on the English language has a lot to do with this.

For example, in my experience Irish journos (do you see what I did there?) always refer to the 'Irish Independent' newspaper as 'the Indo' - while UK people refer to the Independent as 'the Indy' or indeed 'Indi' (round Jo Whiley's way, surplus copies of it are used as landfill).

Similarly, the Irish lottery was for years (before the UK had one) known - to me, inexplicably, as 'the lotto'.

Popular TV personality Gay Byrne was widely known - frankly, cringeworthily to any sane person - as 'Gaybo'.

This 'o' suffixing as a national tendancy can be contrasted with the 'i' or 'ie' suffixing of Australia, where everything is 'barbies' and 'tinnies', 'surfies' and 'sandies' and all the rest of it. [translation: barbecues; tinned beer; surfers; people on a beach.]

Any other thoughts?

0
Colin H | 11 July 2011 - 4:16pm

A Swedish linguist

has written an interesting post on the use of the '0' suffix in all kinds of languages. http://linguistlist.org/issues/9/9-360.html It's written for fellow linguists rather than the general public - and my own brain has gone into hibernation this afternoon so I mainly picked up the following things:

1. A Rabbito was a person who sells rabbit meat door to door in Australia until they all died out from myxmatosis - the rabbits, that is, not the rabbitos.

2. The 'O' may be productive. (No, no idea what that means.)

3. It's generally perceived to be derogative across a lot of languages, possibly stemming from the Romance languages.

4. Because there isn't a lot of words ending in 'o' in English, Swedish and French, it has got an outlandish ring to it and the words in turn acquire an outlandish behaviour, eg weirdo.

There is a section about its use coming to America from Ireland and also that the Irish Gaelic 'o' ending meant young, so 'Sean -o' would mean young Sean etc.

0
Carolina | 11 July 2011 - 6:35pm

There is a football team

of the rugby league variety in Sydney called (and spelt) The Rabbitohs.

0
Mousey | 12 July 2011 - 12:52am

The Rabbitohs

(full name South Sydney Rabbitohs NFL) is a rugby leage club part owned by actor Russell Crowe since 2006.

True dat.

0
mojoworking | 13 July 2011 - 12:54pm

Place names

Not really what the OP is about, however there is a concentration of place names ending in 'o' between Dundee and Aberdeen (Stracathro, Kirkbuddo etc.) Can't think of many others elsewhere, aside from Westward Ho!, which doesn't really count.

0
Lando Cakes | 11 July 2011 - 8:42pm

There's rousing folksongs...

...in Northern Ireland that would have you believe in a town called "Ballycastle-o!". It doesn't exist. It's just Ballycastle. Likewise, that staple of Irish folksong "Amerikay" turns out, disappointly, to be America. And God knows what the lost-in-time writer of Nic Jones's 'trad arr' "Canadee-i-o" was thinking. Clearly, it was well before the days of songwriters' rhyming dictionaries.

0
Colin H | 11 July 2011 - 8:48pm

And the maid of Fyvie-o

Which the Clancys conveniently rhyme with marry-o, tarry-o etc.

(Though they seem to hold to the Mondegreen 'Fifie-o')

0
Lando Cakes | 11 July 2011 - 9:42pm

Troops of Irish dragoons, riding through Aberdeenshire...

Cultural imperialists I say

0
Glenbervie | 12 July 2011 - 11:39am

Indeed

Nearly as perplexing as their cockernee rendition of 'My old man said follow the van'

0
Lando Cakes | 12 July 2011 - 8:20pm

Wow

A bit of Clancy trivia on the board. I'm impressed.

0
Jorrox | 13 July 2011 - 11:16am

It's a rite of passage on Merseyside

We have lots of this. Katie Lambert who plays for us is Lambo - she's 10.
I play football with a Tanno, and once had a game which had a Thommo, a Dutto, a Basco and two Stevo-s.
The mighty John Aldo Aldridge remains a notable media figure round these parts.
Might it be something to do with Irish immigration in the early to mid 20th Century?

0
PaddyH | 11 July 2011 - 10:22pm

"Stevo-s"...?

...surely you mean "Steveaux" there, Pads?

2
Colin H | 11 July 2011 - 11:33pm

Don't forget

those other childish automotive abbreviations employed by Jezza Clarkson (see what I did there?) and his ilk.

Beemer - BMW
Maser - Maserati
Landie - Land Rover
Rangie - Range Rover
Disco - Land Rover Discovery
Fezza - Ferrari
Porker - Porsche (there's even a Porsche discussion forum of that name)
Pug - Peugeot

0
mojoworking | 12 July 2011 - 1:25am

BBC Radio Essex have a DJ.

This is how he is described on the BBC's website.

"He is wacky, he is zany and he is the two time winner of the prestigious Sony Radio Award for best local DJ.
He is one of the best DJs on the local airwaves today! (He says)."

He calls himself Timbo.

I will never listen to this man.

1
ganglesprocket | 12 July 2011 - 9:50am

All right thinking people would agree with you.

It's an affront. And should be punished appropriately.

0
BernkastelCues | 12 July 2011 - 10:06am

Timbo the Himbo?

...

0
Glenbervie | 12 July 2011 - 11:40am

Timbo

Only a lumberjack should have that name.

0
Ahh_Bisto | 12 July 2011 - 11:49am

I thought it was what...

...Australians shouted when they cut down a tree.

1
Colin H | 12 July 2011 - 12:11pm

I missed this thread too and had the following thoughts

1. Surely David is just playing to see if people really do just respond to any thread he starts. If so, hilarious, well played. Then I noticed it was from 2008.

2. I just wrote 'Uni' in another thread. Apparently, I am thick to do so. Where I come from, it would be almost pretentious to stick with the full form: "well, of course at university we considered Foucault's attack on the very notion of an intrinsic,, stable identity..." VS "yeah - we did a bit of Foucault at uni."

3. Some joke that I couldn't form about Hawaii Five-O.

0
everygoodboydes... | 12 July 2011 - 12:31pm

'Uni'

...I never called it that, myself. In fact, the first time I heard the phrase was on 'Neighbours' some time in the 80s. Since then it's pervaded the world like a disease. it's a very unlovely word. Personally, I'd never use it.

0
Colin H | 12 July 2011 - 1:01pm

Well as I recall it was always

Uni' in the 1980s, even at proper Uni's, and poly's still existed then.

Only a complete wombato banged on about going to The Varsity.

0
Slick | 12 July 2011 - 1:27pm

I always have to remind myself

that when I'm reading The Wordo, it's actually The Word.

Sometimes I read the Moj though.

2
Slick | 12 July 2011 - 1:24pm

What about

the growing trend of adding the terminally naff suffix "vegas" to otherwise mundane place names to presumably add a little ironically humorous glamour?

Just to name a few: Skeg Vegas for Skegness, Chez Vegas for Chesterfield (two for the price of one there) and of course Glasvegas, the band.

0
mojoworking | 13 July 2011 - 5:07am

Glasvegas...

...don't get me started!

0
Colin H | 13 July 2011 - 9:56am

Further to the "Uni" discussion

When I was at a place of tertiary education back in the early seventies, in a land far far away called New Zealand, we called it "Varsity". Has that word ever been heard or used anywhere else?

I first became aware of "Uni" through Australian friends (also back in the 70's)

And while I now live in Australia, I notice when I return to NZ that people now universally use the word "Uni".

Funny old world

0
Mousey | 13 July 2011 - 4:16am

Yes

Usually by Ox-Bridge types. The Woosters and Peter Whimseys of the world went to The Varsity.

0
Slick | 13 July 2011 - 11:25am

I blame

Neighbours for the introduction of 'uni'.

Specifically 'Mike's uni friends'.

0
Brookster | 13 July 2011 - 1:09pm

This could be useful for the OED, Mousey...

....the finger of suspicion is now firmly pointing at Australia for this least lovely of word aberrations! Except that unlike tinnies, barbies and Billy Thorpe, 'uni' has now conquered the English speaking world...

0
Colin H | 13 July 2011 - 9:58am

I know DH said

Australia is "for another time" but there are a great many word abbreviations far, far uglier than "Uni" alive and well down under.

There's Journo, for example.

I won't detain you with a long list here, but the most unlovely contraction known to man is surely the one for Fireman or Firefighter:

It's pronounced "Fiery" but actually spelled Fire-ie (or Firee).

It's crap, isn't it? It fails on every level imaginable (spelling, pronunciation, even the way it looks on the page) yet it's in common usage and is regularly heard on the TV news.

0
mojoworking | 13 July 2011 - 11:10am

Even worse is "ambo"

for the ambulance drivers or paramedics

I hate it.

Especially when people of my profession are lumped together as "musos".

0
Mousey | 13 July 2011 - 12:11pm

Even worse is "ambo"

for the ambulance drivers or paramedics

I hate it.

Especially when people of my profession are lumped together as "musos".

0
Mousey | 13 July 2011 - 12:11pm

Yes!

I must have expunged "ambos" from my memory. But you're right, it's just as crap as Firee/Fire-ie.

And don't get me started on muso!

0
mojoworking | 13 July 2011 - 1:01pm

"lumped together as "musos"..."

...when clearly it should be 'Mousos'. It's disgraceful! :-)

1
Colin H | 13 July 2011 - 12:15pm

When the 'O' Police

catch up with all the transgressors, they'll end up in Gitmo.

0
policybloke1 | 13 July 2011 - 1:22pm

I can hear the prosecutors now...

...(obviously all Aussies... or, er, Ozos):

"Heppo? Ello? Frazo? You stand bango-ed to rightso for having no beardos on the cover of The Wordo for, oh... too bloody longo, mateo. It's off to Gitmo you trio till that Pommie pinko from the Special AKO starts a demo with all that "Free, Free Heppo And Ello" imbroglio. Er, no - not Natalie Imbroglio - if I'd meant that I'd have said 'Natalie Imbroglio-lo, ya wacko..."

0
Colin H | 13 July 2011 - 1:39pm

Why am I thinking of

all the o's and aussi's you could hope for

0
Slick | 15 July 2011 - 2:16am
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