“Shitburger”: swearing, made to order

First there was the nothingburger. Now there’s the shitburger.

In a March column for the Wall Street Journal, Ben Zimmer traced nothingburger’s rise from 1950s Hollywood gossip to Capitol Hill politics. But earlier this week, we got a fresh round of nothingburgers when various people in the Trump camp used it—initially—to describe Donald Trump Jr.’s meeting with a Kremlin-connected lawyer during the presidential campaign in June 2016. 

That all changed after Jr. tweeted out emails showing just how eager he was to get dirt on Hillary Clinton from Russia in that meeting. Stephen Colbert had fun with this metaphor of the month during an opening monologue Tuesday night: “Yesterday, Reince Priebus said this whole story is a nothingburger. Well, these emails have turned into an all-you-can-prosecute buffet.”

Others reacted with a much more colorful variant: shitburger. Twitter, as ever, dished up some telling examples:

Trump shitburger just had another patty stacked on. They sure are piling up! #MAGA #FAIL #TRUMPRUSSIA #TrumpJr

— A Yank in OZ (@dennissheehy) July 11, 2017

So, it is not a #NothingBurger after all, it is a GIANT FULL O' GOP SHITBURGER sandwich dressed with Russian condiments.

— Jay Hova (@JHova_83) July 12, 2017

Nothingburger w/fries is now a stinky shitburger served with several super sized crates of lies. https://t.co/dTwHASAwLY

— Vaswati (@vaswati16th) July 14, 2017

Unlike a nothingburger, between the two buns of a shitburger there is a there there—and it’s, um, well, yeah.

Commercial as fuck

Back in July 2015, when I wrote about the spread of “as fuck” and its abbreviation, “AF,” my sightings were limited to tweets, rap-album titles, and small-batch consumer goods sold on Etsy and other online marketplaces. In a comment on my post, “Y” predicted a bigger future for “AF”: “It’ll be co-opted by the mainstream. In fifty years, Modern Maturity will have recipes for Scrumptious-as-Fuck Cupcakes, and Midwesterners will tell their minister that his sermon was def as fuck.”

Fifty years? Try 22 months. That’s how long it took for New York–based FoodKick to launch its cheeky-as-fuck ad campaign in subways and social media.

AF is officially dead AF. pic.twitter.com/u7IqzLNcDH

— Matt Zoller Seitz (@mattzollerseitz) April 9, 2017

Taking a bite out of “shit sandwich”

These are the best of times for the hard-working shit- prefix. Last week, here on Strong Language, Ben Zimmer investigated the origins of shitgibbon – an epithet that has attached itself to the current occupant of the White House – and plumbed its deeper history in a follow-up post on Slate’s Browbeat blog. This week, the merde du jour is shit sandwich, which surfaced Thursday afternoon in a tweet from CNN anchor Jake Tapper about Robert Harward, a retired vice admiral, refusing the post of national security adviser.

A friend of Harward’s says he was reluctant to take NSA job bc the WH seems so chaotic; says Harward called the offer a “shit sandwich.”

— Jake Tapper (@jaketapper) February 17, 2017

 

(More on Harward from CNN here and from Esquire here.)

Whether Harward actually uttered the words “shit sandwich” is up for debate; Tapper’s single source was anonymous, and the New York Times, the Washington Post, and the Financial Times didn’t even allude in a non-sweary way to the expression. Still, it’s as good a time as any — given the feculent state of affairs at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue and environs — to take a closer look at the history of shit sandwich. Which turns out to be more curious than you might suppose.

Sweary links #22

Linguist Geoff Nunberg considers the media’s coverage of the Donald Trump pussy-grab tape: “The word Trump used may not be the most obscene term for a woman’s genital area. But it’s the one that focuses on it in a purely sexual way.” (Also see our own posts on the subject: A Banner Day for Profanity, by Ben Zimmer; Pussy on a Hot Trump Mic, by Copy Curmudgeon; and Watershed Moments: Donald Trump, Rakeyia Scott, and the Times, by Blake Eskin.)

*

Speaking of Trumpian vulgarities, Language Log ponders the candidate’s use of “like a bitch.”

*

Arnold Zwicky tracks down the history of jackhole: coined by two Los Angeles radio personalities to circumvent Federal Communications Commission language proscriptions.

*

This is a Missouri gun shop called Tactical Sh*t pic.twitter.com/g3zmYzDDCz

— Sarah Kendzior (@sarahkendzior) October 10, 2016

 

(Hat tip: @scarequotes)

Sweary links #15

Celebrating U.S. Thanksgiving next week? Perhaps your guests would enjoy a slice of tofucken, that mischievously named concoction of tofu stuffed with tempeh and seitan. (Hat tip: Barry Popik.)

*

Eleven charts that will speak to anyone who really fucking loves swearing. (Hat tip: Mike Pope.)