T.O.’d
photo credit: "Annoyed" by Dustin and Jennifer Stacey (CC-BY-2.0) Definition:(adjective) angry or annoyed (from teed off or ticked off)
Example: Jane was pretty T.O.’d when her boyfriend burned down her house.
Quote:
“I'm just gettin' really... just kinda T.O.'d because, I mean, she hasn't even sent me a full body shot yet..”
This week I was Christmas shopping for my mom at Urban Outfitters, where I noticed a book of quotations from the 2004 cult movie Napoleon Dynamite. If you missed it, the strange, independent film is about a slow and unpopular high school boy who tries to help his equally unpopular friend win the student election over a well-liked cheerleader. The small town in Idaho where the film takes place appears to be stuck in the 1980s, although it is set in the present day.
Linguistically, it’s interesting because the characters use old fashioned phrases and quaint euphemisms instead of bad words. These polite phrases, like flippin’, friggin’ and freakin’ (used for emphasis instead of fucking), dang (instead of damn) and T.O.’d instead of the more usual (but less polite) pissed off, reflect the conservative Mormon area in which it was made. Napoleon’s favorite words include idiot, gosh and the 1980s expression sweet (great).
In the quote above, Napoleon’s brother Kip is talking about his internet chat room girlfriend LaFawnduh. Like the other characters, he uses dated phrases, at one point explaining that he’s making “sweet moola (money) with Uncle Rico” as a door-to-door salesman so he can bring LaFawnduh out from Detroit for a visit. Once she arrives, however, he transforms under her influence into a modern day hip hopper, saying, “Peace out” to his brother instead of goodbye.
A. C. Kemp | December 15, 2005
