Variety has its own Web site now, which is pretty cool if, e.g., you want to find the current U.S. box office for a film: http://www.variety.com/dbox/index.asp TITANIC is now at $242,748,914, in case you were wondering. But the coolest is a dictionary of Variety slang! As they explain: Almost from its launch in 1905, Variety has used its own, distinctive "slanguage" in headlines and stories, words like "ankle," which refers to someone leaving (say, walking away from) a job, or "whammo," which refers to something terrific, especially box office performance. In part it was a device to fit long words into small headlines, but it was also to create a cluby feel among the paper's entertainment industry readers. People in the business understood "thrush"; those outside the business, well, they weren't Variety's target readers anyway. Now that Variety is being made available to to the whole World Wide Web, we offer the following glossary of terms, most of which you're likely to see while scanning this site. You'll find it at: http://www.variety.com/slang/index.asp ---- Jeremy Butler [log in to unmask] ScreenSite http://www.tcf.ua.edu/ScreenSite Telecommunication & Film/University of Alabama/Tuscaloosa ---- Online resources for film/TV studies may be found at ScreenSite http://www.tcf.ua.edu/screensite