December 2025 Grab Bag o’ Humour

I just saw a McDonald’s ad using the phrase “Up and at M” where M was really the golden arches. But because copyright law rewards the most aggressive companies the most, I now fully expect McDonald’s to sue the Simpsons.

You see the Simpson’s crossed the line when they, 30 years previously, had Radioactive Man utter the catch phrase “Up and Atom.”

Now the Simpsons could aggressively sue McDonald’s if they do it right away. But the Simpsons likely won’t, assuming that McDonald’s is an advertising customer at times.

If McDonald’s does this on the down low, expect newer airings of those Radioactive Man episodes to contain the more boring phrase, “Up and at them”.

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I’m thinking of starting my own dictionary. Yes it has to do with the way dictionaries choose their word of the year.

Look at it this year. The Oxford word of the year was “rage bait”. Macquarie dictionary chose “AI slop” as its word of the year. Collins dictionary chose “vibe coding” as its word for the year and Dictionary.com chose “six seven” as its word of the year.

But hope remains. Cambridge dictionary chose “parasocial” as its word of the year. That’s right, only one of these five dictionaries knew the definition of word. That’s a big fail for most of the dictionary world.

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I remember thinking what the *bleep* when I watched the video 6 years ago of “Harleys in Hawaii” by Katy Perry. You see, at the end, the video says “Produced by Canada for Katy Perry and Capitol Records”.

I wondered if the government of Canada was trying to make inroads into the music video market. Perhaps more production money would flow into Canadian coffers. But I have yet to see a video since produced by Canada. And why this one? With American Katy Perry. Set in Hawaii. So much about this is weird.

The Canada logo they show is not the one they use for normal government branded stuff. Perhaps there is some American production company going by the name Canada.

Now Justin Trudeau, prime minister of Canada six years ago, is dating Katy Perry. Is this supposed to be Canada’s payoff for producing the video? As a Canadian I have to say it doesn’t work for me.

But I got curious and did some digging and found that Canada is a Catalan production company.

Maybe Katy manifested something Canadian by choosing that production company.

#AISlop #CambridgeDictionary #Canada #CatalanProductionCompany #CollinsDictionary #dictionaryCom #HarleysInHawaii #JustinTrudeau #KatyPerry #MacquarieDictionariy #McDonaldS #OxfordDictionary #parasocial #rageBait #sixSeven #TheSimpsons #UpAndAtM #upAndAtThem #UpAndAtom #vibeCoding

‘Rage bait’ is crowned Oxford’s Word of the Year for 2025.

“Rage bait” triumphed over “biohack” and “aura farming” to become Oxford’s Word of the Year 2025.

The two-syllable open-compound word refers to an attention-seeking form of online behaviour that leads nowhere good.

https://mediafaro.org/article/20251201-rage-bait-is-crowned-oxfords-word-of-the-year-for-2025?mf_channel=mastodon&action=forward

#RageBait #English #Languages #OxfordDictionary #Dictionary #SocialMedia #WordOfTheYear

BBC: ‘Rage bait’ named Oxford word of the year 2025. “Do you find yourself getting increasingly irate while scrolling through your social media feed? If so, you may be falling victim to rage bait, which Oxford University Press has named its word or phrase of the year.”

https://rbfirehose.com/2025/12/01/bbc-rage-bait-named-oxford-word-of-the-year-2025/

Welsh word 'poody' added to Oxford English Dictionary, baffling producers of Race Across the World

The latest update of the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) has included several Welsh words, one of which caught the attention of the producers of the popular TV series *Race Across the World*. The word 'poody', which means 'to sulk', puzzled the producers when it was used in the show by contestants F... [More info]