Tag: Vocabulary

“Sweat the onions”

SOOKIE: I’m just – do you hear something?
LORELAI: Like what?
SOOKIE: Like someone using the wrong size pan to sweat the onions in.

In culinary terms, “sweating” means to cook something over a low heat in a small amount of fat or oil, usually in a covered pan or pot. It’s usually done with vegetables such as onions, carrots, and celery, and the idea is to soften them without browning before you add other ingredients. Sweating concentrates the flavour and releases sweetness, with the vegetables becoming tender, and onions in particular, translucent.

“The wrong sized pan” for sweating onions is probably one which is too small and would heat up too quickly.

Garden weasel

LANE: Because you just broke up. I mean I’d be perfectly fine to just hang out here and listen to music and talk, not talk, whatever.
RORY: No, I am not hanging out. We are going to this party. It’s gonna be great. I don’t want to dwell on this. That’s final.
LORELAI: [entering room] Don’t argue with her or you’ll find yourself the proud owner of three garden weasels.

A garden weasel is a multi-purpose gardening tool which allows you to cultivate, loosen, and aerate the soil, while also being used as a weeder. It was invented in 1974 in Germany.

Just as being sad over a breakup made Lorelai uncharacteristically interested in cooking, it seems to have made Rory very interested in gardening, which is out of character for her.

Oxymoron

LORELAI: Curtains?
LUKE: No.
LORELAI: Manly curtains.
LUKE: Oxymoron.
LORELAI: What did you call me?

An oxymoron is a figure of speech in which two contradictory terms are linked together as an apparent paradox; the word comes from the Greek for “sharp foolish”, an oxymoron in itself as “sharp” and “foolish” are opposites. Common oxymorons include “love-hate relationship”, “deafening silence”, “working holiday”, “only choice”, “friendly fire”, and “sweet sorrow”.

I don’t know how many times the word has been used in comedy so that a character can take (or pretend to take) offence, as oxymoron sounds like an insult.

Later in the season, we discover that Luke is in fact rather fond of ruffled curtains, which he picked out for his own apartment.

Lorelai and Christopher’s Band Rivalry

CHRISTOPHER: You know I don’t deserve that, I’m as mature as you.
LORELAI: What? The Offspring is your favorite band.
CHRISTOPHER: So? You’re into Metallica.
LORELAI: Well, Metallica is way more substantial than The Offspring.
CHRISTOPHER: Here we go, it’s the same Black Sabbath riff all over again.
LORELAI: Oh! The Offspring have like one chord progression. They use it over and over. They just popped on new words and called it a single, and I don’t want to talk about this anymore!

The Offspring is an American rock band formed in 1984 by Bryan “Dexter” Holland and Greg Kriesel. Their self-titled debut album was released in 1989, and they gained mainstream success in 1994 with their biggest-selling album, Smash. In 2001, their most recent album was Conspiracy of One, which came out the previous year. They were one of the most popular punk bands of the 1990s, and their biggest hits of this era include Come Out to Play (1994) and Pretty Fly (For a White Guy) (1998).

Metallica is an American heavy metal band formed in 1981 by Lars Ulrich and James Hetfield, and one of the founding bands of thrash metal. Metallica attracted a fan base in the underground music community while also gaining critical acclaim. Their 1986 album Master of Puppets was highly influential in thrash metal, while their self-titled 1991 album brought them wider mainstream success and is their biggest-selling album. In 2001 their most recent album was Reload (1997). One of the most commercially successful bands of all time, Metallica have won nine Grammy Awards, and were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2009. By these standards, Metallica would be judged as “more substantial” than The Offspring.

Black Sabbath, earlier mentioned, were an English rock band formed in 1968 by Tommy Iommi, Geezer Butler, Ozzy Osbourne, and Bill Ward. Often seen as pioneers in heavy metal music for their occult themes and image, their 1970 self-titled debut album was poorly reviewed, but a commercial success. By their 1973 album Sabbath Bloody Sabbath, they had begun to win the critics over while still remaining popular. The band broke up in 2017, and are often regarded as the greatest metal band of all time. Black Sabbath have won two Grammy Awards and were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2006.

A riff is a short repeated musical phrase, generally used as the opening or refrain of a song. Both being heavy metal bands, it isn’t surprising that Metallica sometimes have similar riffs to Black Sabbath – Black Sabbath were pioneers in the genre, so their riffs tended to set the standard for defining what heavy metal sounds like. A particularly noticeable example is the opening riff to Metallica’s 1984 track For Whom the Bell Tolls, and its similarity to the final riff in Black Sabbath’s 1970 track Fairies Wear Boots.

A chord progression is a series of musical chords played in a sequence. Certain chord progressions become very popular in certain genres, so it wouldn’t be surprising for The Offspring, like many other bands, to rely heavily on a certain chord progression. The Offspring often uses the I-V-vi-IV progression very popular in punk music, but so ubiquitous that it can also be found in songs by Bruce Springsteen, Coldplay, Celine Dion, Green Day, Madonna, Red Hot Chili Peppers, John Denver, and many others – it’s also the chord progression in Auld Lang Syne.

Christopher later says that he and Lorelai are arguing just like an old married couple, which he sees as a good sign for their relationship. Instead, you can see that they are arguing like a couple of teenagers, and that neither of them is mature enough for marriage.

 

Softball

Rory asks her dad to accompany her to a local softball game that Dean is playing in. Luke is a player on the opposing side, meaning that Stars Hollow has at least two softball teams! This episode provides another inside-joke by alluding to Scott Patterson’s professional baseball career – he was a baseball pitcher in real life, and also the pitcher at the softball game in this episode.

Softball is a variant of baseball, played with a larger bat on a smaller field. It was invented in Chicago in 1887, giving it a connection with Dean’s home town. It’s a popular sport for amateurs as it can be adapted to almost any skill level, and the rules can be changed to suit the circumstances (in Stars Hollow, the rules are almost Wonderland-level – they stop when they get tired, and the first team to get even one run wins). The softball season usually begins in February, so this game is relatively early in the season.

Pitcher: During the baseball scene Luke is the “pitcher”, meaning he is is the one pitching balls to the opposing team’s batter.

On-deck circle: When the softball scene opens, Dean is standing in the “on-deck circle”, the area where a player stands when they are next up to bat.

Strikeout: The batter ahead of Dean “strikes out” by failing to hit the ball three times in a row. Luke notes that he is the second member of Dean’s team to do so.

Fielders: The players on the non-batting team who aren’t pitching spread out in order to catch the ball, thus potentially catching the batter “out”. When it is Dean’s turn to bat, he suggests that Luke sends his “boys a little further into the field”. He means that he is planning to hit the ball a long way, so that the fielders on Luke’s team had better get further out onto the field.

Whiffing: Luke suggests that the only reason his fielders would need to get further out is so they can get a better view of Dean “whiffing”. In baseball and softball, whiffing means to swing at the ball without hitting it – in other words, to strike out.

The softball scenes were filmed at the Hartunian Baseball Field in the Sepulveda Basin Recreation Area in Encino, Los Angeles. You can see some very un-Stars Hollow-like homes overlooking the field, which are in Encino Village.

“Kind of a big success”

CHRISTOPHER: I don’t know how much your dad has told you but I’m on the verge of kind of a big success; it’s for real this time. I’ve got a company with an actual cash flow, I’ve got employees, I’ve got an accountant, for God’s sake. He wears a tie and says words like “fiduciary” and “ironically”. I mean it’s for real this time, Lor.

This is the Internet start-up business in California that Richard told Lorelai and Rory about in the Pilot episode, approximately six months ago. We now hear more about it from Christopher without ever finding out what exactly the company does, or was supposed to do.

(A fiduciary is a person who holds a legal position of trust in business, typically being in charge of financial assets to either have them in their safe-keeping or to invest them wisely on another’s behalf. Although this would cover many different types of jobs, it is typically used to refer to a trustee who is responsible for the money in a trust fund – it may suggest that Christopher’s accountant is helping him use his trust fund money to pay for his business venture).

Christopher’s reassurance that “it’s for real this time” suggests that he has attempted, and failed, at several businesses previously – or has even flat-out lied about trying to start a business. Little wonder that Lorelai is rather sceptical about it.

Touché

LORELAI: The both of you are going directly to hell, I hope you know that.
RICHARD: Well, at least we’ll be well rested.
LORELAI: Touché.

In the sport of fencing, touché is said to acknowledge a hit made by your opponent; it means “touch” in French. In colloquial use, it acknowledges during a conversation that the other person has made a good point at your expense. This is a slight callback to Richard’s fencing prowess in college, mentioned earlier.