Date: Thu, 14 Sep 1995 09:47:54 EDT

From: Larry Horn LHORN[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]YALEVM.CIS.YALE.EDU

Subject: with a bullet



OK, now that we've settled the English Only dispute and the issues of meta-

theses and related non-standard pronunciations and consonant cluster

simplification, I wonder if it's time to introduce a new topic. Can anyone

help me pin down the above? I did check a few recent slang dictionaries (and

regular ones) to no avail, although one contained a related verb in a citation

from the Rolling Stone about a song that was "bulleting its way to the top of

the charts". I think the first uses I recall involved "No. n with a bullet",

and I understood them to mean something like "No n. [on the charts, said of a

popular song] but moving up rapidly". This would then constitute an instance

of D.J. lingo, but where did it start? Does this 'bullet' have anything to do

with the kind that shoots, or with the typographic symbol (Opt-8 on my Mac

keyboard)? Is the use expanding to different contexts? (There was a subhead

in Tuesday's N. Y. Times reading "Giants and Jets: 0-4 with a bullet", which

I interpreted as meaning that the teams' combined 0-4 record was likely to be-

come even worse.) Can anyone help? (I did notice it wasn't in DARE, but

then it may not count as a specialized regional use.)



Larry