As if Drew Barrymore didn't turn up often enough in the marketing blitz for Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle, these days she's even in the dictionary. Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, the nation's bestselling lexicon, is just out with an 11th edition that cites Barrymore as a source for the word "gnarly." "As opposed to its traditional good connotation," says the book's associate editor Maria Sansalone, "it means bad and nasty now. She said, 'He has some pretty gnarly karma coming.'"
Here are some other unlikely figures who made it, and their words:
Ex-Surgeon General Dr. M. Joycelyn Elders, "ism": "We all have got to come to grips with our isms."
Dallas Cowboys coach Bill Parcells, "let go": "He let himself go and got real fat."
NYPD Blue producer Steven Bochco, "wazoo": "We've got lawyers up the wazoo."
Novelist Tom Clancy, "workmanlike": "reporter who turned out workmanlike copy."
Your Reaction
