This is going to be very strange as I try to explain a ridiculous (and ridiculously intricate) inside joke shared with a friend many years ago. But I am going to try because it pops into my head so often as I watch political news. I feel it must be shared with the world, like how I am trying to popularize the phrase "trying out for cheerleading" as slang for forcing oneself to vomit. At the very least I would like to use these neologisms on ginandtacos, in which case it would be nice if anyone knew what the fuck I was talking about.
My dear friend Pauline V., with whom I have regrettably not spoken in ages, helped me coin the term I am going to discuss here: "wagonhalt." It is pronounced as though it is a German word, and I will explain its bullshitted etymology in a moment.
Wagonhalt ('vəg – in – hȯlt) noun: the intense discomfort and embarassment one feels upon watching another person humiliate himself unwittingly
It is a German word for several reasons, notably that the Germans always seem to be on top of coming up with words for crap like this. As for the term itself, a simple portmanteau of "wagon" and "halt", we imagined it as something that German settlers of the American west would shout when someone in their wagon train made a grievous error in judgment or a severe social faux pas (i.e. "stopping the wagons" to evict or properly ostracize the offender). We decided to use the term slightly out of its (made-up) original context – as a noun describing a spectacle so humiliating to watch that an uninvolved third-party can be overwhelmed. Our stock example? Wagonhalt is what you would feel watching a room full of retarded children sing "Me So Horny." It is not only the exclamation you would use but also the noun describing your feelings and reaction.
I told you this was more detailed than it needed to be, and this is the kind of crap that comes out of me while drinking. Let me try to explain why this is useful in politics, if it is not already obvious.
It is not hard to find examples from everyday life – like watching a man propose to a girl at halfcourt of a packed stadium and get rejected) or American tourists in other countries watching "cultural exhibitions" during cruise ship stops. But the world of politics is a goldmine. Take, for example, Mitt "Who Let the Dogs Out" Romney trying to show how well he understands the colored folks. Pure wagonhalt. Physically hurts to watch. Dukakis in the tank? Wagonhalt. Our Leader trying to answer a question that isn't a plant? Also wagonhalt.
I am constantly yelling this in my head, so I felt like sharing it. It would please me to no end for you to offer up some of your favorite examples, either in narrative form or with video.
Matthew says:
I humbly submit my recommendation that you create a new filing category of these sorts of terms and call them, collectively, "Ed's argot."
That is a good term to have in one's repertoire, I must say.
Samantha says:
First of all, I like what you've done with the place. I go away for a month and come back to find that you're all shiny and new.
Secondly, I think wagonhalt is a brilliant word, perfectly created for very specific, yet heretofore unnamed, phenomena – much like how I feel when my live-in boyfriend, who has been unemployed for about a year and a half, asks my advice, without the slightest trace of irony, on how best to hang a hammock in our treeless back yard so that he may "get outside and enjoy this nice weather."
Wagonhalt!
J. Dryden says:
Yep, that there's a word I'm a-gonna be usin' from hereout. (And you just *know* that the Germans are kicking themselves for not having a 53-letter-long term for that feeling. "We've got a word for every other deviant nuance of the psyche, dammit! What were we thinking?!")
And here's how I can state unequivocally that the term and its meaning are the product of genius: you having described it, I'm now seeing it *everywhere.*
Just to list some topics that you've offered us in recent months/years: The RealDoll phenomenon. Dennis Miller on Fox. Kristol's editorials in the NY Times. Zell Miller at the GOP convention. And Bush has given us so many splendid moments of wagonhalt that, really, when the word hits Webster's, it should have his picture next to the definition.
Interesting to note that THE OFFICE (both versions) have recognized that wagonhalt can be mined for comedy–and that comedy can quickly become unbearable if pushed too far into wagonhalt territory.
Juliette Lewis is wagonhalt personified–I curdle with embarassment whenever she appears onscreen. Others can provide their own actorly equivalent.
But if I have to pick one, oh, what the hell, it's a bit viral, but it's still a beautiful moment of a person being asked what to do about the failure of education in our country, and revealing, in her answer, the degree to which that failure cannot be overestimated (never mind the link, here's the transcript):
"Recent polls have shown a fifth of Americans can't locate the US on a world map. Why do you think this is?"
"I personally believe that US Americans are unable to do so because, uh, some people out there in our nation don't have maps, and, uh, I believe that our education like such as in South Africa and, uh, the Iraq everywhere like, such as and I believe that they should, our education over here in the US should help the US, er, should help South Africa and should help the Iraq and the Asian countries, so we will be able to build up our future for our children."
If she broke out into singing "Me So Horny" after that, it would actually lighten the mood. That's how thick the wagonhalt is.
pxs says:
You've finally given me a word for something that I've been feeling for years (if I understand it correctly). I used to go through this when I would watch a "comedy" where the joke is someone embarrassing themselves and being humiliated. I just cringe — because that could be me. Had to stop watching Frasier because that was half of the jokes.
On the flip side, did anyone else see the CNN commentator who said "voters vote for the people that they like" on Super Tuesday? The video was replayed on the Daily Show, and so last night that same commentator prefixed her comments with "At the risk of being made fun of by Jon Stewart….". Maybe the end result of parody and satire is creating wagonhalt-awareness.
Jeremy says:
I think wagonhalt goes best with a side of Benny Hill Music