Cool Words from the New Yorker
The New Yorker (founded in 1925) is the classiest magazine around.
When dozens of magazines have given up the ghost in the post-Internet era, the New Yorker (a weekly) thrives thanks to the consistently high quality of its content over 100 years.
For the last two decades, I’ve tried not to miss any issue.
Unlike a lot of the magazine’s readers, I steer clear of its fiction preferring to pore over the features, profiles, and movie and book reviews. The lengthy features on topics as varied as the work of a repo man, a highway in Tamil Nadu (October 14, 2013), the American Dream, etc. make for fascinating reading.
Thanks to the magazine, I’ve discovered several writers whose writing I enjoy immensely: David Remnick (Editor), Anthony Lane, Calvin Tomkins, Jane Mayer, et al. Although Anthony Lane has gotten off his movie review perch, he still writes the occasional piece.
Tomkins, alas, died three months back after working at the magazine for six decades.
Then there are the outside contributors like Arthur Krystal whose byline never fails to produce a frisson of delight. After my first introduction to Krystal in the pages of the New Yorker, I subsequently purchased a couple of his books.
In every issue of the New Yorker you can be sure to find a bunch of interesting English and foreign words or phrases.
Here are some gems I picked up from some recent issues of the New Yorker:
- Zebra-striping
Meaning: Behavior of consumers “alternating between cocktails and N.A. [non-alcoholic] drinks” at a bar (New Yorker, May 25, 2026, P.64) - Shrewd bubbleheads
Meaning: In the context of the piece (a brief item on Noël Coward’s Broadway play, Fallen Angels), it is a paradoxical phrase referring to people who seem airy, unserious, and foolish, but are actually quite adept at manipulating situations to their advantage (New Yorker, May 25, 2026, P.4) - Boredom in excelsis
Meaning: Maximum boredom
Example: Here’s Calvin Tomkins: “It recently became clear that interviewing dozens of people, gathering mountains of material, and keeping it all in my head has become increasingly difficult, what with my porous memory and failing eyesight. So why not just accept the inevitable and enjoy a year or two of leisure? I’ve tried that, and no thanks. Boredom in excelsis. Hence the journal.” (Source: New Yorker, December 22, 2025) - Kapellmeister
Meaning: A musical director or conductor, especially in the German classical tradition - Doom Loop
Meaning: A self-reinforcing cycle in which one problem worsens another, causing continual decline - Sub-rosa tactics
Meaning: secretive, covert, or confidential methods - Digital Sludgefest (June 22, 2026)
Meaning: low-quality online content - Case the joint
Meaning: covert surveillance of a building or home preparatory to a crime - patron saint of mediocrities
Example: Is nepo baby Rahul Gandhi the patron saint of Indian political mediocrities? - Neurodivergent
Meaning: having a neurological pattern differing from what is considered typical. Examples include autism, ADHD, dyslexia, and related conditions - La joiussance
Meaning: Intense enjoyment, ecstatic pleasure, or overwhelming psychic satisfaction; often used in philosophy and psychoanalysis - Shape shifting
Meaning: Constantly changing form, identity, style, or behavior - Ephemera
Meaning: Items or experiences that are short-lived; also collectible paper items not meant to last (tickets, posters, postcards) - Indelible
Meaning: Impossible to erase, forget, or remove - Boneheaded
Meaning: Stupid - Trad Wife (short for Traditional wife)
Meaning: BT, this term has entered the OED now. Here’s the OED definition: “Often disparaging but also used as a self-designation. A married woman who exhibits or advocates an approach to marriage or domestic life that is viewed as nostalgic, traditional, or conservative, esp…”