Blend of the week
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Sharknado is apparently an actual movie, about to be released, about tornados made of sharks.
The official synopsis:
When a freak hurricane swamps Los Angeles, thousands of sharks terrorize the waterlogged populace. And when the high-speed winds form tornadoes in the desert, nature’s deadliest killer rules water, land, and air.
I can't think of any other -nado coinages, aside from a brand name or two, but some must be Out There.
Stan said,
May 25, 2013 @ 9:06 am
There are game character names like Thundernado and Demonado, but I don't know if they consciously exploit the -nado libfix/fadfix/pseudofix (or whatever it is).
More predictably: tornadopocalypse has done the rounds, returning about a thousand ghits.
Cynthia said,
May 25, 2013 @ 9:09 am
Just last night, we caught a re-run of CSI: Miami and one man sent another man a "pornado," or, an onslaught of unsolicited pornographic images. Clever word. Horrible thing.
MonkeyBoy said,
May 25, 2013 @ 9:18 am
Well, there is the word baconado, because errm I guess everything is better with lots of bacon.
I don't know if it has a consensual definition however Bacon Jew's brother in law makes one as a bacon stuffed and bacon wrapped avocado.
Stan said,
May 25, 2013 @ 9:29 am
Unedited texts can have small eggcornados.
HP said,
May 25, 2013 @ 9:48 am
Wikipedia gives us "gustnado," describing a weather phenomenon that falls short of the meteorological definition of a tornado.
Slightly tangent, but linguistically interesting, there's also "derecho," describing a long, straight front of continuous high winds. The word was coined by a non-Spanish speaker as a supposed antonym of "tornado," based on folk etymology. I witnessed my first derecho just last year. Damnedest thing I've ever seen.
Timbul Botak said,
May 25, 2013 @ 9:54 am
I'm a long time scifi fan, help run coolscifi.com and one of my interests is B movies, particularly from Asylum and SyFy Originals. There's a list compiled at: http://tuningintoscifitv.com/sbmdb/ courtesy of likeminded friends harking from the 'Fans of SyFy Original Movies' and 'Saturday B Movie Reel' (podcast) groups on Facebook.
Here's some word blends you may find of interest:
Arachnoquake
Triassic Attack
Independence Day-saster
Sharktopus
Dinoshark
Piranhaconda
Robocroc
Stonados
Cybergator
Cobragator
Supergator
Frankenfish
Manborg
Gateroid
Battledogs
MonkeyBoy said,
May 25, 2013 @ 10:07 am
The media has sometimes used snowado for the obvious combination of "snow"+"tornado".
[(myl) I would have expected "snownado", which seems to be about as popular on the web…]
AJD said,
May 25, 2013 @ 10:32 am
It became a running gag in the short-lived TV show "The Middleman":
Tyler: Seriously, since you and I met, I've been writing like a songnado.
Wendy: A tornado made of songs?
Tyler: You know it.
Wendy: Look at all those pineal glands. It's like a glandnado.
Tyler: A tornado made of glands?
Wendy: Yes.
MonkeyBoy said,
May 25, 2013 @ 10:54 am
(myl) I would have expected "snownado"
Smokenado (smoke devil, dust devil) appears to require the "nado" ending because "smoke" ends in "e". Snow(n)ado can go either way because of the final "w".
Victor Mair said,
May 25, 2013 @ 11:19 am
Sequence for making such a film:
1. imagine a scary poster
2. come up with a freaky blend name
3. try to devise a story line
I suppose that #1 and #2 could be reversed, but the point is that the story is likely to be the weakest part of the film.
Stan said,
May 25, 2013 @ 11:36 am
NATO clones Ralph Nader and seeds the clones via storm systems: NATO-NADER-NADO.
Tagline: "NEATO!"
Kevin said,
May 25, 2013 @ 12:17 pm
@Victor Mair — I'm not sure that #3 is required, especially for a made-for-SyFy movie.
Lazar said,
May 25, 2013 @ 12:26 pm
"Snowmageddon" and "snowpocalypse" are always popular among news folks when there's a big winter storm approaching.
John Lawler said,
May 25, 2013 @ 12:42 pm
Clearly this movie deserves to be thrown many rotten Sharkmatoes at.
rootlesscosmo said,
May 25, 2013 @ 12:48 pm
In the 60's Oldsmobile produced a model called the Toronado.
As for coming up with a plot line, "Enough Said!" suggests they didn't try any harder than the makers of "Snakes on a Plane," whose publicity included Samuel L. Jackson saying "Snakes on a motherfuckin' plane!"–in other words, "enough said!" (It wasn't, though.)
Rod Johnson said,
May 25, 2013 @ 1:48 pm
I believe the actual Samuel L. Jackson quote was "I have had it with these motherfucking snakes on this motherfucking plane!"
Stan said,
May 25, 2013 @ 3:22 pm
Or, in this glorious TV edit:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z4t6zNZ-b0A
Alex said,
May 25, 2013 @ 5:11 pm
This Homestar Runner sketch includes the word "wastenado" (along with "crapvalanche," "suckquake" and "bucksonsoon"):
http://www.homestarrunner.com/sbemail204.html
Rubrick said,
May 25, 2013 @ 6:12 pm
My thanks to Alex for saving me a trip to the Homestar wiki.
maidhc said,
May 25, 2013 @ 11:29 pm
Vornado is a company that makes fans, heaters, etc. Presumably Vortex+Tornado?
JS said,
May 26, 2013 @ 12:10 am
Wait, no one's mentioned godzilla?
Amy said,
May 26, 2013 @ 8:07 am
Here in Japan there's a street/festival food called a "potatornado", which is a potato cut into a spiral and fried. There are some Google hits in English, but about 5x as many when you search in Japanese (ポテトルネード). Looks like most of the English-language ones are from people visiting or living in Japan.
Gregory Kusnick said,
May 26, 2013 @ 12:44 pm
Backstage at a recent production of Swan Lake I heard dancers refer to the fourth act storm scene (in which the swans run around in a circle on stage) as "the swanado".
I also found the following forum post in which a hunter describes a vortex of actual swans observed in the wild:
http://www.ifish.net/board/showthread.php?t=441800
Tom V said,
May 26, 2013 @ 9:20 pm
Speaking as an Okie, any tornado that leaves sharks intact rather than ripping them to shreds can't possibly be stronger than an EF-1, and is therefore nothing to worry about:-)
MonkeyBoy said,
May 27, 2013 @ 1:01 pm
I don't know what a "swanado" would look like but there seems to be the more general term "birdnado" some of which look like funnel cloud bird tornadoes. All of these seem to involve murmurations of starlings. While murmuration is just the collective name for a group of starlings it seems to be taking on the more specific meaning of a giant swirling cloud of them, and as a "learned" term can displace the folksy "birdnado". I think only starlings exhibit such behavior which means the term still seems specific to them though some have tried to extend it to pigeons.
Circe said,
May 29, 2013 @ 9:43 pm
On a similar note, I remember that long ago there used to be a section called "Toonami" on Cartoon Network, which used to be reserved for Japanese animations.
Peter Taylor said,
June 2, 2013 @ 11:01 am
I saw Returnado as a headline in a newspaper today, talking about a second major tornado in Oklahoma in a short space of time. It wasn't my newspaper; I think it was the Sun, but the headline doesn't appear to be on their website.
Chandra said,
June 6, 2013 @ 2:11 pm
@Amy – Here in Canada I've seen such food referred to as a "rotato".