The Count Dragula* - Part One

* Countdown of the odd linguistic expressions 
of this 5fth season of RuPaul's Drag Race.

Whilst we're on the countdown to learn 

which queen will be crowned next America's drag superstar, 

I present here a countdown of the remarkable idiosyncratic expressions that occurred through this 5th season of RPDRace (ep. 4 - 13).

10 Black Swan: Why It Gotta Be Black?

Coco Montrese & Alyssa Edwards

This is quite a disappointing episode in terms of linguistic strangeness (check post 1). The most noteworthy occurrences of strangeness occurr in the speech of Detox. Detox use of abnormal voices and intonation is quite characteristic of her English – like when she speaks imitating the cackling of a chicken in episode 3.

One of Detox's odd linguistic behaviour occurrs when he complains about Mahogany's dance performance. "Honey kind of sucks. Watching her was so uncomfortable." Then, Detox alter his voice to an unusual high pitched intonation, and let out a...

"F*ck my life."

9 Snatch Game: This episode didn't feature many remarkable oddities.

One in particular drew my attention:

“She put the wubba in wubba wubba wubba.”

Downtown Julie Brown: MTV Veejay

RuPaul uses this nonsense expression to introduce the snatch game guess Downtown Julie Brown. Wubba wubba wubba is an expression that became Downtown Julie’s catchphrase on MTV.

Wubba wubba wubba also appears in the

Monster in the Mirror song from Sesame Street.

An interesting expression occurred in the workroom, right after Jade Jolie jokes, “You know what’s ugly? Poverty.” Jinkx then replies: “The Jade… the Jade of it all.” This expression refers back to the phrase The shade… the shade of it all that was introduced in RPDRace season 4 by Latrice Royal.

8 Can I Get an Amen? In this episode, among the few new language oddities that occurrs, one interesting one came from RuPaul: "Waiter, can you wrap that ass to go?" It's a normal sentence that has an unusual word collocation - ass.

Alaska - one of the three finalist

Another interesting use of language occurs when RuPaul addresses Alaska during the runway. Ru asks, "Alright, who is gonna ask 'er." Then, he himself answers it: "I'll ask 'er!" I'll ask her is homophone to Alaska. 

To close, Ru don't miss the opportunity to change the words of the song Can I Get an Amen? and instead sings: "Can I get a gay man?"

7 RuPaul Roast: This episode has more linguistic oddities.

To start with, they begin with The Library challenge

and the queens have to read each other to filth.

The Library is Open challenge

As usual, they play with the words top and bottom. "Coco Montrese, For someone who call himself a top, you sure like being on the bottom." Roxxxy allundes the fact that Coco has been in the bottom two already twice.

"Long story short: the season of the fish smells like trout." Alaska plays juxtaposing the words fish and trout - fish meaning feminine sexy and trout meaning manly and somehow decadent.

When the queens are challenged to participate in a roast, it's time for the queens show off their linguistic wittiness.

Jinkx plays with the word top. "It's gonna be hard to top Coco. But look at her. Who would wanna top Coco?"

6 Scent of a Drag Queen: the title of the episode is an allusion to the film Scent of a Woman. Here, the queens had to create a perfume and film a commercial for their signature fragrance.

Alaska created a memorable commercial and, by far, the most memorable expressions which played with the word Red and read (past of read). Her commercial went…

Alaska's Signature Fragrance

“Whether you getting read the house down. Or just ready to go down. The exciting new fragrance: RED For Filth… Are you Red-y for me?”

5 Drama Queens: in this episode the most marked aspect of linguistic strangeness was the exaggerated use of Spanish replacing English words and expressions.

Ella No Es Dama, or, She's No Lady

Spanish words – and expression perhaps – are actually very frequent in the American English as a result of the flow of immigrants from Latin America into the U.S.A.

Here, the queen had to enact a Mexican telenovela – the Latin America equivalent of soap opera.

That’s why most of RuPaul’s utterances in this episode evoked some Spanish or some aspect of the culture of Latin America (especially Mexico.)

“Shake the dice and steal the rice… and beans” RuPaul refers to rice and beans, which is a staple food largely associated with Latin America.

“I can see her cuchi cuchi.” Cuchi cuchi apparently is a slang term for the lower parts of a woman; the phrase “cuchi cuchi is a trademark of Charo – Spanish-American actress and comedienne who appeared frequently in American television shows.

“Serving Tex-Mex…” Tex-Mex is defined in the OED as an adjective that denote Mexican and Southern American features of something (especially food or music); it also refers to a variety of Mexican Spanish spoken in Texas.

Queens on the Runway: dressed with Latin Glamour

The most representative expression of this episode, however, was “Caballeros, start your engines. And may the best mujer… win.” Caballeros and mujer, naturally, being the Spanish for gentlemen and woman.

The countdown continues in the next post.