You think you speak English fluently. You think you have a decent vocabulary. And then you meet someone so embedded in their hobby, that they have an entire vocabulary you’ve never heard of.
Just talk to a pro wrestler. You’ll hear about “blading,” where these guys actually cut themselves with a “gig” razor blade to create drama and look injured. A “job” is losing a match so the other guy will look stronger. Some wrestlers have no other job than to be a jobber. “Kayfabe” is keeping the script a secret. It goes on and on.
Let’s jump to the
inside lingo of cat shows. “Furnishings” are not the number of sofas a cat has
torn to shreds, but the hair inside the ears. A “UFO” is not a space traveling cat,
but the United Feline Organization. And “Cat wash” is not a typo of car wash,
but can be a bathing bag that supposedly keeps owner and cat calm during the
bathing process. But it isn’t all hoity toity, there’s also the “Moggy,” a cat
show for non-pedigreed cats.
We all like movies, but that world has its own secret language as well. The electrician is called the “Juicer.” A “Barney” is a blanket used to muffle camera noise. A “Blimp” is a box that does the same thing. A “Dope Sheet” isn’t a list of idiots on the set; it’s a list of scenes that have already been filmed. A “Squib” is a capsule of fake blood, used to look like a bullet wound (and wouldn’t this be useful to the wrestlers?) Finally, “Alan Smithee” is the only pseudonym a director can use if it’s a real stinker and they don’t want to be associated with it!
The game show, Truth
or Consequences, used to pick someone from the audience to “speak” in their
occupational lingo. I watched, as a kid, fascinated. Little did I know I’d grow
up to marry St. Bob, who hosted that show after Bob Barker! And yes, like all couples, we have our secret
language, too. But those examples are, well, secret.
But it's no secret that you can learn hundreds of
fast life hacks right here, on my Youtube Mom channel.
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