The Lunxicon

I just wanted to give kudos to our friend, “Bust.” Hugely versatile and wonderfully short and sweet, it’s  been used to express a variety of emotions and thoughts over  a wide spectrum of contexts.  It is so multifaceted that I don’t even know where to begin.

I will skip the obvious meanings like “busted up the party,” “busted that bitchass motherfucker’s nose,” “I got busted doing a line off my brother’s wang.”etc.” Instead, I will focus on three less traditional, but no less useful, uh, uses.

My sophomore year in college, I roomed with a fellow with whom I quite enjoyed hanging out. He introduced me to 32-bit videogame consoles, death metal, and lots of really awesome bands that made me want to punch random people in the face. (Luckily, I am a generally reserved fellow and did not succumb to this desire, because I would probably have gotten my ass kicked many times and perhaps been sent to jail where i would have gotten my ass kicked even more times and probably have been sodomized repeatedly and in a very violent manner.)  Anyway, his friends from Long Island would come visit a lot, and would, naturally, talk about girls (womyn, if you are a weirdo). Once, I heard one of them exclaim, “Yo, whatever, man; that chick is BUSTED!”  Though I had never heard this phrase before, I instantly knew what it meant. You know you have a great piece of diction when it is instantly understandable.   It’s also a great logical next step. It’s obviously used as a truncation for “Yo, whatever, man; that chick looks as though somebody busted her face up with a hammer.” Or, for the slower or more sensitive reader ,  “That female is rather unattractive.”

Somewhat related, though not at all really, is the use of the word to refer to the actually kind of gross but ultimately satisfying and ecstatic (or shameful, depending on the context) of the ejaculation of seminal fluid. See, “Oh shit, i’m gonna bust,”  “Yeah, baby, turn over and lemme bust all over your ass,” etc. Now, this isn’t the most refined of terms. Nor is it all that impressive. However, I am a big fan of alternative names for bodily emissions. So suck it.

The final, and perhaps least known, use of “bust” I will discuss is related to the down-syndrome-esque form of dancing known as moshing.  Picture the scene: It is a saturday evening. You are in a dirty, cramped room filled with a bunch of white dudes with tattoos everywhere. Some of them have their shirts off; some of them are dressed for the wrong skin color; some of them are decked in skintight jeans, $200 sneakers, and Youth-large shirts. A band plays–the singer is jumping around like a frog on speed. The crowd is surging this way and that. Suddenly, the song stops for a half second as the inebriated amphibian yells out, “Bust it!” The band starts up again like a broken metronome–kind of on time, but not really–and all the wigger dudes start beating the shit out of the dudes in tight pants, under the guise of representin in the pit. The appeal of this scenario is obviously not universal, but I love the use of “bust” as a mosh call.  Again, suck it.

In conclusion, “bust” is like the garlic of words. It is appropriate for nearly any occasion: it can be soothing (“Aw yeah, baby, I’m gonna bust.”) or abrasive (“I’m gonna bust you up, buster”). So, the next time you are cooking in the conversational kitchen of life, throw some “bust” in your sauce for a true culino-lexical treat.