Lucky Progress Report: Now Even More Incomprehensible!

To: Lucky

From: Glossed Over

Re: Your progress with the English language

Last month, we discussed your penchant for making up words (which is completely unnecessary, as you’re inventing constructions when words that mean the exact same thing already exist).  Now that you’ve had an issue to consider our suggestions, we wanted to follow up on your progress using commonly accepted American English terms.

First, while the cover didn’t include any freshly invented words, it didn’t exactly inspire confidence.

Grey’s Anatomy’s Katherine Heigl spills her fashion secrets

We understand there was absolutely no way to avoid that double apostrophe.  Obviously, there were serious considerations preventing you from saying something less awkward like, oh, “Katherine Heigl of Grey’s Anatomy,” and thereby sidestepping that quandary.   We can’t think of what those might be, but we’re sure you had your reasons.

Unfortunately, our dismay didn’t end there.  Below, in alphabetical order, is the list of dubious words sprinkled throughout the January issue.

‘50s-ish

aromatherapeutically

chainlet

drapey

fashiony

foresty

Frenchy-chic

gleamy

lipsticky

MySpace-ish

partyworthy (We freely admit to nitpicking here.  “Party-worthy” would be our preference.)

rain-foresty

suitish

un-makeupy

vintagey

zhoozh

We’d especially like to discuss the final entry on the list.  What is this word and what could it possibly mean?  How many editors looked at this and decided it was perfectly comprehensible to the average person who doesn’t actually work at Lucky?  Let’s take a look at the context:

We keep this in the beauty department at all times for last-minute volumizing: Flip your hair over, spritz a few times, and zhoozh with your fingers.

That doesn’t exactly clarify this strange word apparently invented in the heat of a hair-volume emergency.  Is zhoozhing like scrunching?  Is it distributing the product through your hair?  What else could you do with your fingers in this instance? 

We’re stumped.  Perhaps the staff should consider including a Lucky-specific glossary in each issue. Or perhaps it would be easier if we simply give up trying to read the small amount of text in each issue.  From now on, we’ll just stick to the pictures.

Comments

[Becca]

I believe "zhoozh" is a reference to Queer Eye for the Straight Guy. Kyan (grooming guy) would often tell the straight guys to apply hair product and "zhoozh" with their fingers. It just means to kind of style the hair loosely with your fingers rather than spending a lot of time on it.

I have no explanation for any of the other words though.

[Kristen]

Yeah, I was waiting to see what you would say about zhoozh. :)

[Jason]

Frenchy-chic? This has got to be the weirdest of the bunch next to zhoosh.