Tag: Vocabulary

Wilding

LORELAI: You know, you should meet my daughter. She’s about your age. She can show you where all the good wilding goes on . . .

“Wilding” is an American term which gained media use in the 1980s and ’90s to describe gangs of teenage gangs committing violent acts. It is no longer often used.

The word has an ugly history, coined during the Central Park jogger case of 1989, after a white female jogger was assaulted and raped in Manhattan’s Central Park. Five black and Latino juveniles were convicted of the crime, police contending that the boys said they were “wilding” in the park, the police taking this to mean committing violence.

This has been disputed as a (wilful?) misunderstanding by the police. Other theories are that the boys were repeating the lyrics to the Tone Loc song, “The Wild Thing”, or that they said they were “wiling”, meaning “hanging out, whiling away the time”.

The boys served sentences of between six to twelve years, and all later had their charges vacated after a serial rapist and murderer confessed to the crime while in prison. This was in 2002, so after this episode aired (Lorelai doesn’t know she is referencing falsely imprisoned schoolboys).

So far, Lorelai has linked Jess with prisoners and the Mafia, and joked that he may be going out to hold up a liquor store. Once she actually meets him, she connects him with violent gang rape. At this point, her “jokes” about Jess have become openly hostile, and quite nasty.

As Lorelai has joked about a violent gang rape, and used a word with a racist history to Jess, I wonder if this is when he decided he didn’t like Lorelai very much?

401(k)s

SOOKIE: Just try to look older [to get into the nightclub].
RORY: How?
SOOKIE: Look like you’re thinking about retirements or 401(k)s and stuff.

In the United States, a 410(k) is a pension account where retirement savings receive contributions from the employer, and is tax-deferred until retirement. In other countries, it might be called a personal pension scheme or superannuation fund.

Puce

MAX: How ya doing?
LORELAI: Mm, I’m stable.
MAX: You’re a lovely shade of puce.
LORELAI: Don’t say puce. It sounds too much like another word I don’t wanna hear right now.

Puce is a dark red or purple-ish brown colour. The word comes from the French word for “flea”, and is supposedly named for the colour of bloodstains on bed sheets after a flea has been crushed.

Lorelai moans that the colour reminds her of the word “puke”.

Ennui

LORELAI: Michel, we’ve been over this, we all cover the phone, that includes you.
MICHEL: Don’t misunderstand. I want to answer it, I truly do, but today, today I am suffering from ennui.

Ennui is the French word for boredom and lethargy, with connotations of a melancholy world-weariness, and the jaded feeling of having life a little too easy. It has a particular resonance in twentieth century existentialist literature, such as by Kafka, Sartre, or Albert Camus, which often centres on a protagonist who drifts through life in the grip of ennui, angst, and alienation.

Lorelai has absolutely no patience with this, and diagnoses Michel as simply being tired, for which she prescribes (of course) massive amounts of coffee.

Rubbing alcohol

(Lorelai and Rory ring the doorbell. Emily answers the door.)
EMILY: Hello, hello, hello.
LORELAI: Wow, Mom, hi. (to Rory) Uh, check the rubbing alcohol.

Rubbing alcohol is an American term for those types of alcohol, such as methylated spirits, which are used as an antiseptic in domestic and industrial uses. They are often used as cleaning products, and their name comes from the fact that in the past, they were used in the same way we use heat rubs, to relieve pain and stiffness.

Lorelai appears to think her mother seems so cheerful she must be drunk, but in fact you can’t drink rubbing alcohol – they put bitter poisons in it to stop people abusing it that way. It would taste awful, and you would most likely become very sick before you got drunk. Lorelai is just joking though.

Parsing for subtext

LANE: He [Henry] left a message. I listened to it eight-and-a-half times, but then my mom came home and I had to erase it. But I was so panicked that I broke it, which is better because now all evidence that a boy called me is in the trash.
RORY: Eight and a half times.
LANE: Well, it was a good message the first couple times. Then I started parsing it for subtext.

To parse a sentence means to analyse it by reducing it to its grammatical elements, while subtext is the underlying meaning of a particular text. In other words, Lane began picking apart everything Henry said to search for hidden meanings.

Graham Cracker and Broiler

JACKSON: Or take a graham cracker, spread a little [jam] on it, break up a chocolate bar, throw it in the broiler for a couple of minutes, and you’re gonna be singing show tunes all evening.

A graham cracker is a type of cracker which is made from coarse wholemeal flour and sweetened with honey; it is very similar to a digestive biscuit. Graham crackers were inspired by the teachings of the Rev. Sylvester Graham, who preached the importance of a wholefood vegetarian diet – one of the first vegetarian movements in the US. The crackers were first marketed to Graham’s followers, but he didn’t invent them or profit from them. They are now made by a variety of brands, and can also be home made.

A broiler is the American word for the grill on the top of the stove – in American usage, grilling means the heat comes from below, while broiling means the heat is coming from above.

So if you would like to try out Jackson’s recipe, take a digestive biscuit, spread a bit of home made raspberry and peach jam on it, cover it in a broken up chocolate bar, and pop it under the grill for two minutes until the chocolate melts.

Jam

JACKSON (to Lorelai): Yeah, and I also brought some of my raspberry peach jam. I think you’re gonna like it. Put it on ice cream.

This might confuse some non-Americans, because one of the earliest Americanisms often learned is that in the US they call jam “jelly”, and jelly is “Jell-O“. So what does Jackson mean by “jam”?

The US Food and Drug Administration has some very clear rules on what constitutes “jelly” or “jam”. Jelly is made from the clear juices of fruit, then boiled with sugar and pectin so that it sets into a spreadable consistency. Despite the name, it doesn’t have gelatine in it, and is much sweeter than the fruit jellies made in the UK that are eaten with meat (eg bramble jelly). For some reason, jelly is considered a food more suitable for children, or is more popular with children.

Jam is made from boiling mashed fruit with sugar until it is able to set into a spreadable consistency (it’s basically what everyone calls jam). It may not need pectin to make it set, as many fruits already have pectin in them. For some reason, it considered more suitable for adults than jelly, or is more popular with adults. It is usually of a runnier consistency than jelly, which is why Jackson suggests using his raspberry and peach jam as a topping for ice cream.

In Star Crossed Lovers and Other Strangers, we learned that Jackson planned to begin making his own jams, preserves, and tomato sauce – the jam he gives Lorelai must be an example of what he has made so far.