Soccer Moms Voted Off The Island For Jumping The Shark: 10 Odd American Expressions You Should Know

Despite an economy that resembles roadkill, America still excels at media, including entertainment and news. We give good hype, and the Internet brings it to the rest of the world 24/7. One problem: all this unfiltered Yankee content poses a linguistic challenge for people in other countries, even those fluent in English. That’s because Americans also excel at screwing with the language — and I’m not just talking about Miss South Carolina (warning: excruciating cringe-inducing video ahead)…

This occurred to me during this year’s elections: “Joe Six Pack,” “Drinking The Kool-Aid,” and “Voted Off The Island” were just a few of the news expressions that might beguile someone who wasn’t raised in America, who doesn’t keep pace with our popular culture, or who’s over the age of 70.

So as yet another friendly Cool Rules Pronto public service, here are 10 expressions you should know. (Note: I’m not attempting to chronicle all slang in existence — that’s what Urban Dictionary is for. I just selected odd terms that have become so commonplace that they appear in newscasts.)

Joe Six Pack: In America, beer is often sold in bundles of six cans. It’s usually the cheapest of beers, and it’s easy to carry one bundle in each hand. Hence, for working class American males — many of whom are named Joe — thirst is not quenched by an elitist glass of wine, but by a couple of six packs from a convenience store. Interesting side note: someone with well-defined abdominal muscles is said to have “six pack abs” because of the way they appear, but most Joe Six Packs have bellies resembling kegs from all that drinking.

Soccer Moms: Joe’s counterpart in this election is the Soccer Mom. (Sarah Palin changed it to “Hockey Mom.”) Soccer Moms are middle-class white suburban women who can afford to skip work and take their kids to soccer practice. They’re usually pictured driving monstrous vans or SUVs. Soccer Moms and Joe Six Packs rarely mingle outside of election rallies.

Switftboat: In the 2004 U.S. Presidential election, a hitsquad of veterans who served on Vietnam swiftboats with Senator John Kerry slandered his military record. Kerry failed to defend himself against their attacks, and his subsequent loss is widely attributed to this “swiftboating.” Today it refers to any particularly heinous attack on someone’s character or reputation.

-Gate: Since Richard Nixon’s Watergate scandal of 1972, many scandals have been nicknamed using a word combined with “-gate” such as Troopergate and Plamegate. There’s no logic to this, since “Watergate” was just the name of the office complex that Nixon’s men broke into. But logic is not part of American language — or American politics.

Drinking The Kool-Aid: In 1978, cult leader Jim Jones persuaded 907 members of his Peoples Temple in Jonestown, Guyana to commit suicide by drinking Kool-Aid (a sweetened beverage) laced with cyanide. I’m certain that Kool-Aid brand managers are not happy with this association, since there’s no proof that the sweetened punch was actually Kool-Aid, but pop culture can be brutally unfair. Since then, “Drinking the Kool-Aid” has referred to the act of believing anything a leader or group tells you, without questioning its truthfulness.

Hail Mary: In American football, a “Hail Mail” is a play of desperation, in which a quarterback throws the ball as far as he can in slim hopes that a teammate will catch it and score a touchdown. It’s a very risky play with little chance of success, and is usually only attempted on the last play of a game (though some opportunists will do it on the last play of the first half). It now applies to any desperate move by a losing team, particularly in politics.

It’s Not Over ‘Til The Fat Lady Sings: This is an old phrase referring to operas that end with a fat woman singing. Sportscasters say “it’s not over ’til the fat lady sings” to encourage viewers to keep watching in case the losing team stages a comeback. Other sportscasters prefer Yogi Berra’s statement of the obvious, “It ain’t over till it’s over.” Considering that most Americans in 2008 have never seen an opera, and would have to be forced at gunpoint to attend one, this particular expression will probably soon hear fat ladies singing its own death knell.

15 Minutes of Fame: In 1968, American artist Andy Warhol said, “In the future, everyone will be world-famous for 15 minutes.” He was close: with YouTube, everyone is famous for approximately 3-5 minutes. (See Miss South Carolina…)

Voted Off The Island: On the TV show “Survivor”, contestants live and compete on a deserted island. At the end of every episode, one contestant is voted out by the others and sent home a loser. Oddly, this is highly entertaining. Hence, “voted off the island” means getting kicked out of a group or company.

Jump The Shark: My favorite expression also has roots in television. “Jump The Shark” refers to a laughably bad episode of the once-hit TV series “Happy Days” in which a character decides to waterski over live sharks. Since this show was supposedly about ordinary people in the 1950s, the absurd plot was a sign that the writers had officially run out of ideas. Now, whenever a TV show or an actor’s career declines, people speculate on the exact moment — usually the most embarrassing one — where they “jumped the shark.” The phrase is also applied to Presidential candidates, but fortunately, not to bloggers… yet.

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