What is a muffin (person)?
Dale Williams
> Luidger Roeckrath <u31...@sunmail.lrz-muenchen.de> wrote:
> >
> > Hi,
> >
> > can anybody tell me what a muffin is? Not the pastry, but as description
> > of a person. I found it in Primary Colors in sentences like: she is media
> > muffin.
>
Two possibilities:
"She is a media maven"
or
"She is a media [dollybird]".
The former is a Yiddish expression which one of our US readers could
define better than I could; it's not in my dictionaries.
The latter use of "muffin" is current teenage slang; a tasty-looking
young male is referred to in teenage magazines as a "stud muffin". This
has as much or as little meaning as any teenage expression.
A third but remoter possibility would be "muffin" as used in North of
England, where to call a person a "muffin" means they are a bit of a
silly duffer. A crate egg, in fact.
DAW
BILLM...@delphi.com
Quoting "N.Mitchum"<aj404 from a message in alt.usage.english
>It's hard to feel a strong like
>or dislike for muffins, there being so little of subtlety or
>substance to them.
All I can say is that you are buying your muffins from the wrong
places.
Bill McCray
Lexington, KY
(BillMcCray at delphi dot com)
Gary Williams, Business Services Accounting
One hundred years ago or so, a "muffin" was an incompetent base ball player
(the name of the game was spelled as two words back then).
1) Any idea why?
2) Was this term used for the uncoordinated in other sports?
Gary Williams
WILL...@AHECAS.AHEC.EDU
Bill Fisher
In article <1997Jun3.080925.1@ahecas>, will...@ahecas.ahec.edu (Gary Williams, Business Services Accounting) writes:
|> One hundred years ago or so, a "muffin" was an incompetent base ball player
|> (the name of the game was spelled as two words back then).
|>
|> 1) Any idea why?
|>
...
Cause he was always muffin' those double plays?
- billf
N.Mitchum
BILLM...@delphi.com wrote:
-----
> >It's hard to feel a strong like
> >or dislike for muffins, there being so little of subtlety or
> >substance to them.
>
> All I can say is that you are buying your muffins from the wrong
> places.
Untrue. It's by looking for muffin in all the wrong places that
one develops yeast infections of the mouth.
--- NM
Bob Aganoush
: Luidger Roeckrath <u31...@sunmail.lrz-muenchen.de> wrote:
: > can anybody tell me what a muffin is? Not the pastry, but as description
: > of a person. I found it in Primary Colors in sentences like: she is media
: > muffin.
From the same novel, I inferred that a (human) muffin is a
rather quiet, efficient creature who works behind the scenes
whil louder folk grab the limelight.
Larry Sherman
--
-------------------------------------------------
The preceding message was spell-checked by Lord
Dimwit Flathead the Excessive, who is solely
responsible for its content.
The Chocolate Lady (Davida Chazan)
On 3 Jun 97 08:09:25 MST during the alt.usage.english Community News
Flash, will...@ahecas.ahec.edu (Gary Williams, Business Services
Accounting) reported:
>One hundred years ago or so, a "muffin" was an incompetent base ball player
>(the name of the game was spelled as two words back then).
>
>1) Any idea why?
I'll take a crack at this one (although I would have thought that you,
Gary, would have thought of this yourself)! To 'muff' something is
slang to get something wrong. An 'in' is short for a run batted in.
So 'muffin' could mean to not get a run batted in.
>2) Was this term used for the uncoordinated in other sports?
This is doubtful.
Now, how do we get the term 'muffin' to mean a person. Anyone see my
question regarding the origin of the term 'stud muffin'? Well, if we
assume that if a muffin was originally an incompetent baseball player,
we can probably surmise that most of the incompetent baseball players
were the ones who had fans only because of their good looks. Someone
known for their good looks (in this case, a male) would be called a
stud. Therefore, today's term stud muffin could mean an incompetent
(or stupid), handsome male.
(Or the male counterpart for a bimbo, if you will.)
Davida Chazan - The Chocolate Lady
<dav...@jdc.org.il>
~*~*~*~*~*~
De chocolato non est disputandum! Ergo, carpe chocolatum!
~*~*~*~*~*~
Support the Jayne Hitchcock HELP Fund:
http://www.geocities.com/~hitchcockc/story.html#fund
WARNING: Email address corrupted to prevent spam (unTilde
someone comes up with a better idea).
AIMS Lab
The Chocolate Lady (Davida Chazan) wrote:
>
> Now, how do we get the term 'muffin' to mean a person
About 1953, "Muffin the Mule" was a popular puppet show on BBC
children's TV.
--
Chris Perrott [still sneaking in on this shared account]
Brian J Goggin
On Thu, 5 Jun 1997 16:34:00 +0100, Albert Marshall
<alb...@execfrog.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>AIMS Lab <aim...@pacific.net.sg> wrote
>>The Chocolate Lady (Davida Chazan) wrote:
>>>
>>> Now, how do we get the term 'muffin' to mean a person
>>
>>About 1953, "Muffin the Mule" was a popular puppet show on BBC
>>children's TV.
>>
>Which is surprising, because it is an illegal activity in most civilised
>countries.
Were you in Cairo during Hitler's War? (That, as another thread has
it, is Cairo, Egypt.)
bjg
Albert Marshall
Brian J Goggin <b...@wordwrights.ie> wrote
>>>children's TV.
>>>
>>Which is surprising, because it is an illegal activity in most civilised
>>countries.
>
>Were you in Cairo during Hitler's War? (That, as another thread has
>it, is Cairo, Egypt.)
>
If you mean the War 0f 1939-1945 (as another thread has it), I was born
in 1948.
--
Albert Marshall
Executive French
Language Training for Businesses in Kent
01634 400902
Truly Donovan
O.Det wrote:
>
> So, now we're accepting the heresay of TEEN magazine for our
> etimology reference ?!?! Wow...
Um, is that "heresay" as in the expression, "It says here that..."?
--
Truly Donovan
"Industrial-strength SGML," Prentice Hall 1996
ISBN 0-13-216243-1
http://www.prenhall.com
AIMS Lab
Brian J Goggin wrote:
>
> On Thu, 5 Jun 1997 16:34:00 +0100, Albert Marshall
> >>>
> >>> Now, how do we get the term 'muffin' to mean a person
> >>
> >>children's TV.
> >>
> >Which is surprising, because it is an illegal activity in most civilised
> >countries.
>
> Were you in Cairo during Hitler's War? (That, as another thread has
> it, is Cairo, Egypt.)
Or Port Said, a little later. So they say.
--
Chris Perrott [definitely outta here -- plane to catch]
N.Mitchum
Truly Donovan wrote to >>O.Det :
-------
> > So, now we're accepting the heresay of TEEN magazine for our
> > etimology reference ?!?! Wow...
>
> Um, is that "heresay" as in the expression, "It says here that..."?
You've misread. It's to be taken as in the sentence "For this
heresay, Joan, we gotta burn you at the steak."
That's what makes it an "etimology reference." Another, closely
related example is stake tornados. Which I, for one, have et.
But, having et more than one, I should write that I etc them,
shouldn't I?
(With any luck my wife will hit me in the head with a board again,
and I'll stop this.)
--
--- NM
[Replies copied to my e-mail are appreciated]
Simon R. Hughes
On Fri, 06 Jun 1997 13:48:30 -0700, "O.Det"
<ol...@deletespam.netcom.com> scribbled:
> Dale Williams wrote:
> >
> > The Chocolate Lady (Davida Chazan) wrote:
>
> [snip] (we're talking about the origins of "stud-muffin")
>
> > A current favourite such as Brad Pitt would be described as a
> > "babelicious stud muffin". No insult or inference of stupidity intended,
> > just placing the emphasis on the tastiness of the morsel.
> >
> > I'd go for the oral gratification explanation, which the "licious" part
> > of babelicious seems to underline.
>
> So, now we're accepting the heresay of TEEN magazine for our
> etimology reference ?!?! Wow...
No, but teen magazines are a strong influence on today's youths and
can thus shape the language of the future. <cringe>
===
+ From the digits of Simon R. Hughes + mailto:shu...@sn.no +
+ Headers changed to prevent spamming. +
+ To reply, remove *spam-blok* from address line. +
+ http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Acropolis/1194/index.html +
James Wallis
In article <339A99...@usyd.edu.au>, Adrian Tan <as...@usyd.edu.au>
wrote:
>
>Two queries. How common is "babe" of males?
Around our office, pretty frequent. Usually of students in on work-
experience.
> and what words are available
>(for males as well as for females) to describe attractive males?
Hunk
Twinkie (blond)
My slang thesaurus gives "beefcake, buf, glamour-puss, hunk, little
pretty, sexpot, smoothie" which proves, I think, that the Penguin slang
thesaurus is essentially crap.
--
James Wallis, Director of Hogshead Publishing (ja...@hogshead.demon.co.uk)
Publishers of WARHAMMER FANTASY ROLEPLAY (wf...@hogshead.demon.co.uk)
(Warhammer is a trademark of Games Workshop Ltd, and is used with permission)
Markus Laker
Adrian Tan <as...@usyd.edu.au>:
> Two queries. How common is "babe" of males?
I've never heard it used.
> and what words are available
> (for males as well as for females) to describe attractive males?
You may remember that, a few weeks ago, I wrote about the poofter
complex that is endemic in British manhood: the irrational terror of
appearing gay. Because of it, there aren't many words that a British
man will use to describe another man as attractive, unless he's
obviously joking or speaking from a woman's point of view ('Is he a bit
dishy, then?'). Two terms that might get an outing (sorry) are
'attractive' and 'good-looking'.
As in dress, women are much freer. They might, with varying overtones,
say: hunky, a hunk, macho, beefcake, dishy, a dish, sexy, a himbo,
good-looking, a good looker, a looker, [drop-dead] gorgeous. Unlike the
equivalent ways of describing a woman, and with the exception of
'bimbo', none of these terms is likely to cause offence (although they
may attract unwanted attention).
Markus Laker.
--
My newsfeed is dropping messages again.
*Please* send an emailed copy of any reply.