Send That ‘Hanging Chad’ to USC, and Other Up-to-Date UCLA Insults

Older adults will no doubt be mystified by some entries in Pamela Munro’s book, “UCLA Slang 4,” including “shmed” (cigarette), “feti” (money), and “gleek” (“to send a stream of spit out of one’s mouth”).

But there’s a new campus expression that will be familiar to all in the latest collection compiled by Munro, a UCLA linguistics professor, and her students.

It’s “hanging chad,” which means unwelcome follower (as in, “We tried to ditch the hanging chad at the party”).

Let’s hope the hanging chad can be ditched at the next presidential election.

On the other hand, I doubt that anyone can stop the nauseating infusion of feti into the political process.

Slinging more slang: Some now-dated entries that appeared in Munro’s previous dictionaries are missing, including “Fred,” a synonym for jerk. It alluded to the Fred Flintstone cartoon character.

Other subjects are timeless, at least on the Westwood campus. The initials “USC” were the subject of just seven insults in Munro’s first slang compendium. There are 18 in “UCLA Slang 4,” including University of the Scholastically Challenged.

Guide to Daring Dining: Hi. I’ll be your server today. The specials are (see accompanying):

* Some porterhouse cuts that figure to have a wooden taste (Carol Orendy of Chatsworth).

* A very heavy veal entree (Judi Birnberg of Sherman Oaks).

* An appeal against eating odoriferous food on the London subway (Harry Hornett of San Juan Capistrano).

* And, finally, a product containing chromium picked up by George Smith of Pasadena at a Hollywood nightclub (where else?). It’s obviously intended for fans of heavy metal, at least in caplet form.

Sometimes a picture isn’t worth a thousand words: In its coverage prior to the tip-off of the the Lakers’ championship-clinching win, the game plan of KNBC-TV (Channel 4) news went awry, to put it mildly. The ronfineman.com media Web site gave this play-by-play of the station’s technical difficulties on the 5 p.m. news.

* Anchors Colleen Williams and Chuck Henry switch to Doug Kriegel at a sports bar. But there’s no picture of him. “Doug, do we have you?” asks Williams before leaving him.

* Switch to Fred Roggin for the pregame warmup in Philadelphia. There’s a tape of players practicing but no Roggin.

* Switch to Laurel Erickson at Staples Center. Her lips are moving but there’s no sound.

* Back to Kriegel inside the bar. He introduces a tape but nothing happens. Viewers see him standing silently.

* Back to Roggin. He’s barely audible.

* Back to Erickson, who says: “Hi, can you hear me? The problem is we can’t hear the directors or anyone so we have no idea when we’re supposed to be on.”

Someone call time out!

And to top it off: On another KNBC newscast, anchor Paul Moyer was narrating a piece of tape when the picture disappeared and viewers saw only a black screen for about five seconds.

Oh, yes, it was a segment on rolling blackouts.

Stupid Driving Tricks: “Driving north on the 15 Freeway in the Rancho Cucamonga area,” writes Penny Lampman of Wrightwood, “we passed a driver holding a note card in her left hand and a cell phone in her right while steering with her knee. The license plate frame on her car read, ‘Hang up and drive.’ ”

Obviously she didn’t want any other cell-phone yakkers on the freeway to drown out her conversation.

miscelLAny: An L.A.-based company, Equity Marketing, is recalling 4,300 remote-control race cars after reports that they were overheating and smoking. Can’t you just imagine what the rest of the country is saying? Even L.A.’s toy cars are smoggy.