User:Risker/Useful

Did you know?

The expression "extraneous hoopla" does not draw up a lot of google hits (39, by my browser), but it demonstrates how phrases seep into English lexicon through specialist areas. The oldest use online is a May 12, 1994 article in the Los Angeles Times written by music critic Mike Boehm in advance of a concert by Elvis Costello and the Attractions. It refers to a number of reunited bands touring that summer (Pink Floyd, The Eagles, and The Rolling Stones to name a few) as mounting shows full of "extraneous hoopla".

By 1995, it had entered the sports lexicon; Dennis Lowden uses it to discuss NFL football (that's the American kind), in his book The nail that sticks out — One American's 18 months in Japan. The expression largely remained in these specialist vocabularies, being used to describe the World Series of baseball, the Stanley Cup playoffs of ice hockey, and kd lang's marvellous 2004 album Hymns of the 49th Parallel. Around 2006, the phrase was spotted in IT blogs and other more prosaic writings.

Of course, we all know that in 2008, it is used by single purpose accounts to describe the questioning of the status quo.

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{{BASEPAGENAME}} is on a "semi-wikibreak", due to the real world intruding on Wikipedia time. Please be patient, this too shall pass.

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Risker will be editing very sporadically until mid-September and will not be able to respond quickly to messages left here. She apologises to the fine editors who have requested her assistance, and encourages all of her Talk Page Watchers to pitch in where they can. With luck, real world demands will subside to their usual excessive level in the near future. Please be patient, this too shall pass.

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{{BASEPAGENAME}} is on a "semi-wikibreak", due to the real world intruding on Wikipedia time. Please be patient, this too shall pass.

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Risker may not always respond quickly to messages left here, due to the real world intruding on Wikipedia time. Please be patient, this too shall pass.