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Ad blurb pwnage

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500days.jpg

"500 Days of Summer will own you."
-- Peter Travers, Rolling Stone

I have not been able to find the context in which the cutesy ad blurb above originally appeared. It's not in Travers' review at RollingStone.com. Maybe he spoke it, or something like it ("It will own you"), in video or podcast remarks. I've seen it used in web ads and TV spots. But, really, what was Travers trying to communicate by employing this phrase? That the movie vanquishes you, the viewer? (At least he didn't say "pwn.")

What's the adjectival form of "n00b"?

17 Comments

weird...

I'm not sure what the adjectival form of n00b is, but this does remind me that "w00t" was the Merriam-Webster 2007 word of the year. I still haven't gotten over that.

Peter Travers certainly makes this movie sound enticing, but I don't know if I'm ready for that level of commitment.

N00b is a noun, so I'm thinking the adjective form would be n00bian. Just a guess.

Could it be a bogus quote? Could they mean Peter Travers from R0lling St0ne?

As a wise man once wrote:

"It's a beautiful thing, the destruction of words. Of course the great wastage is in the verbs and adjectives, but there are hundreds of nouns that can be got rid of as well. It isn't only the synonyms; there are also the antonyms. After all, what justification is there for a word which is simply the opposite of some other word? A word contains its opposite in itself."

Perhaps the blurb was an ode to Yakov Smirnoff?

As for the last question, I'd rather not deign to 1337-speak, so I'll just say the adjectival form is "rookie," as in, "They call him a 'n00b.' He makes rookie mistakes." I understand English is a living language, but it's not a hyperactive two-year old on PCP.

Jim, do you have any insight as to how blurbs get chosen? Do they just look for the right phrase, or are the blurbs ever actually tailored to the purpose? I suspect it's the latter.

(Note: I'm not a critic, and am not asking how this is done in order to find a way to get quoted. I've just been suspecting lately that a certain website [ok - chud.com] is trading favorable - frankly GLOWING - reviews of mediocre-to-bad genre movies, for insider access, and getting quoted in commercials.)

noobish

n00bi4l (noobial)

Jim, I think Travers is suggesting that there's some form of slavery going on here. One must thus conclude that this film is in direct violation of the 13th Amendment to the United States Constitution.
Egads!

The adjective form of noob? Nooblesque.

The adjectival form of n00b is n00bie. As in, "Peter Travers came off as a n00bie film critic when he indicated to his readers that they would be owned by the viewing of 500 Days of Summer."

I have another one: nooboid, place 7331-speak where you will.

Traverse is also quoted on the DVD cover of High Fidelity that it "hits all the laugh bases". Maybe his quotes should have little asterisks after them, and down at the bottom in really small print would be an explanation of just what on earth he meant.

Nubine


Roger,

I know a word from the Internets that you could probably use:

Nerfed (verb) To make something a weak watered down shadow of itself. To make something harmless. Origin: Nerf (tm) footballs.

I've already incorporated the words "n00b" and "w00t" into my vocabulary. I haven't warmed up to "pwn3d" though.

Sorry, but beyond other things ... I play lots of video games, and a lot of "pwning n00bs" occurs, resulting in the inevitable, celebratory "w00t."

It's like a new language that is fun.

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