I get letters:
It’s flabbergasting to me that such a thoughtful thinker and talented writer would use this imbecilic expression “nothingburger.”
Thanks! Thoughtful and talented are great things to be.
But what about nothingburger? Is it imbecilic? Or is it a great slang term? I think there's no way to resolve this except by polling the masses. Pick your poison.
Careful. The "form" allows one to vote more than once.
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I think this whole kerfuffle over "nothingburger" is a big nothingburger.
It's not a phrase I would use, but I don't really care if you use it. I vote "Present".
And thus another Kevin becomes Speaker - in this case, Speaker of the Blog.
It's a well-established and well-understood term. I thinkit would be unsuitable in formal academic prose (except perhaps a paper on how language evolves through usage), but easily accepted in casual writing and discourse by all but a few. The objection reminds me of how some Victorians would wax wroth over the terrible modern (at the time) use of "mirror" for "looking-glass" and "spectacles" for "eye-glasses."
Perfectly cromulent usage...
Thanks! You've embiggened my vocabulary.
Did nothingburger as a term of use precede Wendy's "Where's the Beef?" commercials? If it did, it's an acceptable portmanteous, IMHO. If it did not, well, nothingburger is right up there with Boaty McBoatface, again IMHO.
for those unawares of the cultural phenomena:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1FZNYXKHwNw
😉
Here it is at the Ngram viewer,
https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=nothingburger&year_start=1800&year_end=2019&corpus=26&smoothing=3
After a spike in the early 80s, corresponding with, er, the Clash's first three albums? it dissipates until the mid-00's --at just the time Kevin started using it!
So, that's your tombstone, Kevin,
Popularized the nothingburger, didn't make a dime.
First four, probably the Clash's first four albums.
Which is obviously the greatest era in music history.
An odd thing --I look at this blog mostly in Feedbro unless I have deep thoughts to share about something, and this entry shows up with my actual email in the quiz form, but my email doesn't show up in the form on the page itself.
In elementary school, the teacher asked a student -- a special needs kid -- to read the menu for the day's lunch. He made everyone laugh when he said "hamboogers". He, rightfully so, was quite proud of getting everyone to laugh.
it's a fine shorthand slang. i don't love it, nor hate it. use as you see fit, kevin. although i will say you seem to use it quite a bit.
Geez, all the cool kids use it….
You misspelled "kewl kidz."
Good old Anne Gorsuch Burford--the standard for belligerent right-wing crazy before the current crazies. "Nothingburger" may be her one positive contribution to society.
I certainly wasn't her son.
It wasn't her son.
It, man, it.
If t-Rump likes it and used it, I don't like it.
It sounds fine to me, but I was a big fan of Helen Gurley Brown and her use of "mouseburger" to refer to herself and her readers.
Actually, I'm more disgusted by the word "flabbergasted."