Skip to main content

meaning - What does “E!” mean in the phrases, a show “makes the debut Sunday E! sets in motion,” and “premiers on E! April 21”?



I came across a new interjection (seemingly) “E!” in the following sentence of the Washington Post (April 18) article titled, “Ryan Lochte, Ke$ha and the rules for celebrity reality shows”.



Ryan Lochte’s bold personal style: The Olympic swimmer’s reality series “What Would Ryan Lochte Do?” premires on E! April 21.


This week marks the debut of two such shows. Sunday, E! sets in motion “What Would Ryan Lochte Do?,” a look at the Olympic swimmer who made headlines at last year’s London games — not so much for his victories and friendly rivalry with teammate Michael Phelps as for a flurry of awkward interviews and self-deluded sound bites (trademarking the frat-thusiastic phrase “Jeah!”) that gave him a party-boy reputation.



What does “E!” mean? Is it an interjection or a capital letter for something associated with TV entertainment programs?


Additionally, is “Jeah” similar with “gee / jee”? Is the word, “ frat-thusiastic” which I presume to be a compound of “fraternity + enthusiastic” (Pls. correct me if I’m wrong) a current English word, or just a coinage by the author?



Answer



In addition to "E!" being the stylized logo for "Entertainment Television" and it's various intellectual properties, the company has a brand of being "Hollywood hip" and so takes liberties with the English language that are anything but standard.


Stylization in branding and art often includes punctuation and nonstandard capitalization, and is indeed confusing to those not familiar- which some would argue is not entirely accidental. An example beyond those already mentioned include the band "fun." and the internet/company "del.icio.us". This has the somewhat amusing side-effect of making the convention of putting punctuation inside quotes problematic, but that's tangential.


On your other questions, "Jeah" is pretty much just an altered pronunciation of "yeah" meant to convey an attitude related to the word "duh"; it's sarcastic, like a stereotypical immature "frat boy".


The word "frat-tastic" is also slightly different in meaning than you expected, as it is using -tastic as an adjective in a combining form. The statement means to convey that the man is especially like a stereotypical fraternity member. The similarity to "enthusiastic" is more or less accidental, as "-tastic" comes from "fantastic". The "-tastic" suffix is in general use, and the author is relying on familiarity with the convention rather than with the "frat-tastic" example itself being a word in common use.


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

etymology - Origin of the greeting "Sweet dreams".

Does anybody know the etymology of the phrase "sweet dreams"? I tried googling but did not find anything satisfying. Is this a relatively new phrase of the modern world or has this been in use for some time? I think it's the latter one. Answer The OED has the interjection as "a farewell to someone going to bed" from the 20th century: 1908 Sears Roebuck Catal. 198/1 Tenor Solos..Good Bye, Sweet Dreams, Good Bye. But it goes back until at least the 19th and possibly 18th centuries. John Wolcot, writing under the pseudonym of Peter Pindar, used it in his poem "Orson and Ellen; A Legendary Tale" published in 1801: Also from 1801 in The infernal Quixote (Page 287) by Charles Lucas: In the March 1776 of The Universal Magazine was published "The Serenade. A Pastoral Tale. From the German of Gesner" , where the shepherd Daphnis watches over his beloved as she sleeps and sings: The same tale appears in 1776's as Idyl XI, " Daphnis ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Is there a word/phrase for "unperformant"?

As a software engineer, I need to sometimes describe a piece of code as something that lacks performance or was not written with performance in mind. Example: This kind of coding style leads to unmaintainable and unperformant code. Based on my Google searches, this isn't a real word. What is the correct way to describe this? EDIT My usage of "performance" here is in regard to speed and efficiency. For example, the better the performance of code the faster the application runs. My question and example target the negative definition, which is in reference to preventing inefficient coding practices. Answer This kind of coding style leads to unmaintainable and unperformant code. In my opinion, reads more easily as: This coding style leads to unmaintainable and poorly performing code. The key to well-written documentation and reports lies in ease of understanding. Adding poorly understood words such as performant decreases that ease. In addressing the use of such a poorly ...
Post a Comment
Read more

What are the similarities between the relationships of the characters in The Outsiders and Romeo and Juliet?

At first glance, it might appear as if the characters in  The Outsiders  by S. E. Hinton and  Romeo and Juliet  by William Shakespeare do not have much in common; however, when one isolates the core of the conflicts, it becomes clear that the relationships in both stories are rooted in rivalry and secrecy.  In both  The Outsiders  and  Romeo and Juliet , an overarching theme is rivalry. While   socioeconomic status separates the greasers from the Socs in The Outsiders , last names separates the Montagues from the Capulets, who appear to be relatively equal in terms of socioeconomic status. Due to these rivalries, there are instances of deadly interactions in both stories. In  The Outsiders , Johnny kills Bob (whether his actions were justified or not is debatable). In  Romeo and Juliet , Romeo kills Tybalt and Paris, and Tybalt kills Mercutio. These deaths have profound effects on the main characters. In Ponyboy's case, the Johnny's death and other events in the novel inspire h...
Post a Comment
Read more