Obliged to kill three hours on Sunday, a friend and I ended up watching the Food Network, my favorite placeholder channel. And so it transpired that I sat through a full episode of Rachael Ray's 30 Minute Meals.

If you've never heard of Rachael Ray — a noteworthy achievement these days — she's the goofy, unabashedly unsophisticated host of several Food Network shows. As Slate notes, she's also quite possibly "the world's most reviled chef."

Since I myself have a mild case of Rachael Ray Derangement Syndrome (full disclosure: I heart A.B.), until yesterday I'd avoided her shows.

So I didn't know.

I'm here today to talk to you about Rachael Rayisms, or as they're more commonly known, Rachaelisms (alternate spelling: Rachael-isms). These are words and catchphrases either invented or frequently used by Rachael Ray.

The most famous Rachaelism is EVOO (an acronym for Extra Virgin Olive Oil, pronounced "e-voe"). As any professional linguist could tell you, this officially became a real word earlier this year, when it was included in the Oxford American College Dictionary.

Here's Ray accepting a certificate from Erin McKean, quite possibly the world's most beloved lexicographer.

It's actually pretty cool that such a well-known chef plays with language like Ray does, and I really have to respect her for not letting the haters ruin her fun. Coin on, Rachael Ray.

I just dislike the words she comes up with. In the episode we watched, she coined the word choup, a blend of chowder and soup. Then she proceeded to say "choup" about fifty times as she made what was (in my lexicon) clearly just soup. I'm sure that for some people, even chowder is just a kind of soup.

Your definitions, like Rachael's, may vary.

Some notable Rachaelisms

Choup - A blend of chowder and soup.

Delish - A clipping of "delicious."

Easy-peasy - Easy

EVOO - Extra Virgin Olive Oil

G.B. - Garbage Bowl

Igidator - Refrigerator

Motz - Mozzarella cheese

Sammie - Sandwich

Shimmy-shake - Toss (?)

Smashed potatoes - Potatoes that have been roughly mashed.

Spoonula - A blend of spoon and spatula.

Stoup - A blend of stew and soup.

Turn of the pan - A measurement used when drizzling a liquid, esp. EVOO, into the recipe. (Also, I swear I heard her use the measurement "a third of a palm." Apparently she's a big fan of eyeballing.)

Yum-O ! - Yummy, possibly very yummy.

Labels: semantics, vocab