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Words you only find in tabloid newspapers...

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Looby

07:58 / 11.05.04

I want to start a thread to document all the words that no one ever uses in every day life, but crop up all the time in the Sun and the Daily Mail...

Words like love-rat

09:54 / 11.05.04

"Bonk". I think its heyday has passed, but "bonk" was a mainstay of 1980s sex reportage.

Kit-Cat Club

10:16 / 11.05.04

Romp. As in steamy love-romp.

Steamy. As in steamy love-romp...

Whisky Priestess

17:48 / 11.05.04

Love-nest

Tot (as "tragic tot")

Boffin

Honey-trap

Romp (sorry, we might have had this)

Shocker

Madge (for Madonna)

Barmy (As in "Barmy Brent bans Baa-Baa Black Sheep")

Stunna

Saucepot

Plucky (as in "Plucky Pensioner Pounds Purse-snatcher")

Eurocrat

18:13 / 11.05.04

"Have-a-go" hyphenated, as in "Have-a-go Hero" (as in dangerous gun-weilding vigilante)

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

06:23 / 12.05.04

I actually saw "Have-a-go gorilla" the other day... I shit you not.

Wed. (people haven't got wed since the middle ages... we get married now, Cinderella)

Tragic. (usually as adjective to qualify...)

Tot.

and of course, my favourite phrase of all:

Then The Terrorists Have Won.

miss wonderstarr

08:23 / 12.05.04

In an article about soap actress Tracy Shaw's nude theatre role I saw a term for breasts that, despite my interest in sex and women, I have never read elsewhere: I think it was "girl-bollocks" or "chest-bollocks".

The odd thing about this term is that it's desperately unsexy.

On different lines, we could also list "manhood" and, I'd argue, "lovemaking".

ghadis

09:28 / 12.05.04

The term 'Norks' for breasts as in the paparazzi photo of Bjork on a beach in a bikini with the headline 'Bjorks Norks'

boggle, boggle, boggle went my mind

Our Lady Has Left the Building

10:06 / 12.05.04

In a few years time only the newspapers will regularly use the words 'martyr' (as in 'the metric martyr') or 'Saint' (as in 'Saint Diana')

illmatic

10:34 / 12.05.04

The word "storm" as it's used in the tabloids always gets me.

As in "New Storm over Madge's Tragic Love Rat". I always think - what is this storm, what does it consist of? A few slightly stroppy phonecalls? Protests in the street? Rioting? Or Max Clifford and a tabloid editor desperately trying to raise some interest?

(Anyway - wouldn't this one fly better in Conversation?)

Looby

10:34 / 12.05.04

Sexpot
Kinky
sordid
depraved
perverted....

Funny how all these come back to sex, eh?

William Sack

11:15 / 12.05.04

My niece has actually been a "tragic tot." She was in a car accident a few years ago and thankfully she just got a small gash to the head. They kept her in hospital overnight for observations though and my sister stayed with her. My sister was most surprised to see a headline in the small local paper "Mum's Bedside Vigil for Tragic Tot." It has to be understood that this was the same local paper that once ran with the frontpage headline "OAPs to Hold Jumble Sale."

Regrettable Juvenilia

13:17 / 12.05.04

Kinky
sordid
depraved
perverted....

Er.. you only find these words in tabloid newspapers? Hmmm.

Eloi Tsabaoth

15:31 / 12.05.04

Quiz. As in 'MP In Love-Rat Romp Quiz Probe'.

grant

17:04 / 12.05.04

Speaking as a tabloid insider now...

gal-pal.

whopping.

stunner.

Those are the big ones I've used in print but never in conversation, except ironically.

Looby

08:39 / 13.05.04

OK Flyboy - you do use them IRL, but they crop up far more often in tabloids and are used without an ounce of irony...

Oh yeah - and one that really gets my goat is when you get headlines that say things like "Gays to do such and such" - what do you mean "gays"? Gay people? Gay couples? They're not just defined by their sexuality, and don't treat them as one homogenised group!

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

08:31 / 14.05.04

Oh yes, Bizunth! How could I forget "Quiz"?

I'm often wondering what the prize is if you enter one of these "Child Porn Quizzes" that minor celebrities seem so enamoured of...

Whisky Priestess

07:58 / 15.05.04

How could I forget Chat magazine staple "fall pregnant"?

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

11:43 / 15.05.04

Lout. Who the fuck says lout?

Catjerome

15:38 / 15.05.04

"Pol" for "politician" is a staple of our local tabloid paper (The Boston Herald):

"Pol: Nix law impeding non-Mass. gay weds"

"Pol predicts school woes mean tax grows"

Whisky Priestess

22:51 / 15.05.04

I'm sorry, but that's just NewSpeak.

Big Brother is alive and well and living in Boston ...

40%

23:46 / 15.05.04

Raunchy.

Tonight on Eurovision, Terry Wogan observed when some performers did a bit of sexy dancing that "that's what the tabloids describe as a three hour romp".

sleazenation

00:17 / 16.05.04

I must stand up for 'stunner', cos various Pre-raphaelites, but most notably Dante Gabriel Rossetti used it and I find the whole idea of 'The Germ' as a tabloid paper is extremely fun...

The Falcon

00:39 / 16.05.04

The words 'evil' and 'sick' (as in 'mentally unwell') appear disproportionately often in the red-tops.

The Falcon

00:42 / 16.05.04

'Beast' as well.

I use this as a positive word, as well as 'weapon' and 'the damage'.

Sample:

"Heard that tune?"
"Aye, weapon."

■

19:42 / 16.05.04

Scum
Paedo
Hero

and one which I thought was relegated to tabloids and had a nasty shock when I discovered it is used in broadsheets because no-one can remember the difference between inquiry and enquiry:
Police probe

11:12 / 18.05.04

How could I forget Chat magazine staple "fall pregnant"?

...used in The Guardian over the weekend. Twice. In a summary of statistical information on teenage pregnancy, as well, not a gibbering rant. Am wondering about emailing their style guide chappie/ess.

In fact, nobody's had 'love child' in this thread, have they, yet? Although I think it's falling out of favour. Or "Tug-of-love".

Eloi Tsabaoth

11:16 / 18.05.04

Would the progeny of a love-rat and a love-child be a rat-child? Or a love-love?

Ganesh

14:19 / 18.05.04

I rather like the concept of "slamming" things - as in "Gays Slam Widdecombe" or "Plunkett Slams Kittens".

Cloned Christ on a HoverDonkey

21:41 / 18.05.04

Not so much words, but the ridiculous hyperbole found in the taboids:

"Fury Over Cheese Reforms"

"Trolley Rage Hits The Aisles"

"Eamonn Holmes All-Night Sex Marathon"

"Attractive Mother Of Six"

Nowhere else on Earth do people actually get away with stretching the truth quite so much. Except Prime Minister's question time and the local mothers' group.

Olulabelle

22:22 / 18.05.04

It's less of a word and more of a way of saying things, but what I always notice in tabloid papers is how they define women by looks.

'Busty blonde, Sheila, 26, was hit by a bus yesterday.'
'Brainy brunette, Claire, is just about to receive an award for...' and so on and so forth.

Vital info if it's a news item about a female? Hair colour and the size of their 'girl-bollocks'.

William Sack

21:02 / 19.05.04

It's good to see that Big Ron Atkinson has added TV pundity and column writing to jobs where he has been "axed."

Jack Vincennes

11:28 / 20.05.04

The word 'net' as an adjective, as in "Net Pervert", and saying 'TV's' to mean someone who is on television.

Put together, this adds up to TV's Leslie Is Vile Net Pervert, my current favourite tabloid headline of all time...

Eloi Tsabaoth

15:31 / 20.05.04

Funnyman. Sometimes preceded by 'Rubber-faced'.

Jazzatola

05:11 / 22.05.04

I noticed another one today: set.

As in 'Cardiff set for cup final'.

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