Here we are, only halfway through January, and I've already spotted a contender for 2009 Word of the Year:
Beast.
Exhibit A: The Caddy in the photo, which will make its debut on Inauguration Day, Jan. 20, as President Obama's official vehicle. Its nickname: The Beast. According to a BBC News report, "the car is likely to include bullet proof glass, an armoured body, a separate oxygen supply, and a completely sealed interior to protect against a chemical attack. " Also: "Its tyres are said to work flat, so the vehicle will keep going even if shot at. "
Exhibit B: Cable channel A&E's new hourlong drama, The Beast, which begins tonight and stars Patrick Swayze as "an unorthodox but effective FBI veteran" (where have I seen that before?) who's assigned to train a rookie named—oooh, symbolic!—Dove. I'm guessing Swayze's character is the eponymous Beast, but maybe the beast is The System itself. (Totally off-topic: Is Patrick Swayze the new Mickey Rourke?)
Exhibit C: The Daily Beast, Tina Brown's foray into Internet news, or, to be more precise, Internet news "curating." It launched in October 2008. I have to wonder whether Brown chose that name just so critics could have fun with "beauty and The Beast" references.
Exhibit D: The Buffalo Beast, or, as it's known online, simply The Beast, "America's Best Fiend." ("Think of us as the Goldman Sachs of humor," suggests a more topical tagline.) This Beast, which has been around since 2002, definitely has fangs and knows how to use them: Check out its list of "The 50 Most Loathsome People in America."
Miscellaneous evidence here.
The last time we saw a comparable interest in beasts was when Disney brought out Beauty and the Beast in 1991. (The Broadway adaptation closed in 2007 after 5,464 performances.) As you'll recall, that Beast was really a big pussycat.The current incarnations seem a lot more, well, bestial.
Why the beastly surge? A glance at Urban Dictionary, always a good barometer of contemporary culture and lingo, suggests a rise in positive associations:
UK Slang- a person who is very good at something
anything that is good, or someone that is good
v: to bitch someone out; to verbally own someone; to completely dominate
an encouraging phrase to yell to friends; cool; a sexy man
Check out all the combination forms in the left margin, too: beastacious, beasterly, beastafiliac, beastfriend, etc.Other ideas? Let me know. Meanwhile, we have eleven months to talk up "beast" as Word of the Year!
My running sneakers, manufactured by Brooks, are called "Beast" although I think they recently altered that to be "the Beast."
I feel weird about calling two sneakers "the Beast." Just "Beast" seemed more appropriate.
Posted by: James | January 15, 2009 at 11:05 AM
@Nancy Friedman:
"'an unorthodox but effective FBI veteran' (where have I seen that before?)" Oh, I don't know... http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/CowboyCop
@James: Maybe they could be "the beast with two soles"?
Posted by: Q. Pheevr | January 15, 2009 at 02:22 PM
@Q. Pheever: I *heart* TV Tropes.
Posted by: Nancy Friedman | January 15, 2009 at 02:28 PM
Tina Brown stole the name from Evelyn Waugh's Scoop.
Posted by: Lance Knobel | January 15, 2009 at 03:13 PM
@Fritinancy: Thank you very much! It's so nice to get the inside scoop on something this early in the year. The possibilities are something to look forward to. Germs were once called "wee beasties".
Posted by: Nick | January 15, 2009 at 10:34 PM
But none of these will measure up to Ben Kingsley as "Sexy Beast," will they?
Posted by: Mighty Red Pen | January 16, 2009 at 05:03 PM
@MRP: No indeed! Now I'm wondering whether "Sexy Beast" (2000) started the whole beast vocabulary trend.
Posted by: Nancy Friedman | January 16, 2009 at 05:45 PM