New Three-Letter Words (3 of 4)

Exercises in contemporary vocab.

Mhm. Although more often seen as “mm-hmm,” this simple, tight-lipped affirmative appears often both in casual conversations and texts with my friends. There’s a jauntiness to the short form I really like.

Nuh/Yuh. Similarly, these two fragments work as answers when joined with “huh,” as in:

“___-huh!” (“No way!”) Answer: NUH.

“___-huh!” (“I’m telling you, it’s true!”) Answer: YUH.

NGL. Not all LOL-style internet initialisms have had—or likely will have—staying power. But the short form of “not gonna lie” feels like a good bet.

Nio, despite an unstable stock performance, is a solid competitor to Tesla in EV manufacturing.

NIV. Puzzles have honored the King James Version of the Bible (KJV) and others, so it seems like time to shine a light on the New International Version, which was standard in the churches I attended, back in the day.

NPC. This abbreviation for non-player character has been around since at least the early days of Dungeons and Dragons and has transferred into online gaming. Ryan Reynolds played an NPC come to life in the movie Free Guy a few years back. So yeah, I think this one’s got traction.

PvE. Multiple puzzles have acknowledged PvP, the player-versus-player style of conflict in competitive games. This is its major alternative, player-versus-environment, where your competition is in the game itself.

Qiu. This is the name of Qiu Jin, a feminist hero of 19th and 20th-century China. Her story is fascinatng and heartbreaking, and it’s worth finding three good crossings for her name to give it a little exposure.

qq.v. The scholarly interjection “e.g.” appears so often in clues that this abbreviation for quae vide, meaning “see (these references),” feels more in place to me than I would’ve expected.

RDJ. You may have heard of this guy. He played Iron Man for, oh, a while. Some talk he might win an Oscar this year.

SFX and VFX are moviemaking terms often associated with Mr. Downey Jr., though there’s some ambiguity about whether “S” stands for “sound” or “special.” V is definitely “visual,” though, so between them the two acronyms have most of moviemaking imagery covered.

SJW. Some sources would probably prefer to avoid this term, as “social justice warrior,” like “woke,” widely varies in meaning by context, is often meant as an insult, and sometimes communicates a certain conservative set of values—values that crossword-lovers rarely share. I certainly don’t. But I think the word is worthy of discussion, even if those issues would call for some careful cluing.

“Urp!” This belch sound effect is familiar to me from years of reading comics, but it seems like its meaning is clear wherever it appears.

WFH. A couple of puzzles have acknowledged how omnipresent work-from-home got after 2020 and remains today, but I’d give this one a little extra emphasis.

XXS. Very small, as XXL is extra large.

Zan. I’ve restrained myself from promoting comics-and-superhero culture too much with my word choices here. But I think an exception can be made for Zan and Jayna, the “Wonder Twins” who can transform when they touch hands—he into water and ice forms, she into animals.

Widely known thanks to the goofy Super Friends cartoon of the 1970s and its many reruns, the Wonder Twins return every so often when somebody wants to channel that old goofy vibe. KJ Apa of Riverdale is set to play Zan in an upcoming movie.

This series has gotten me more interesting feedback on the Substack than anything else I’ve done. Tomorrow, I’ll be unpacking that feedback and discussing where I think these proposals might go from here.