I saw some good examples of noun-noun compounds recently in the London Underground on these advertisements for a fitness club:

According to Wikipedia, “Bingo wings is a slang term used to describe the build-up of fat and/or extra skin that hangs from the underside of the upper arms. It occurs most frequently in elderly ladies and overweight people. The term apparently originated from the bingo hall custom of raising one’s arm aloft and bellowing “House!”. This ties in due to bingo long being the entertainment of choice for large numbers of elderly ladies, especially in the United Kingdom.”

The descriptive Muffin top is a new one to me so I am surprised that it also has its own entry on Wikipedia. Judging by a Google search, it seems that the term is not as established as the more common Love handles.

“Love handles” → Approx. 1 million Google hits
“Muffin top” → Approx. 0.3 million Google hits

I have heard the term Jelly Belly before in the above context but associate it more with the female anatomy. It is also the name of a Californian Jelly Bean manufacturer. When refering to an over-sized male abdomen, it may be more common to talk about a Beer belly or a Beer gut.

“Jelly belly” → Approx. 1.5 million Google hits
“Beer belly” → Approx. 0.5 million Google hits
“Beer gut” → Approx. 0.2 million Google hits

(NB This demonstrates a disadvantage of using Google to investigate word frequencies - I would imagine that the majority of the ‘Jelly Belly’ hits result from the fact that the term is a trade name. In other words, the results will be referring to confectionary rather than body parts.)

Finally, Moobs is a bit different from the rest. Like the others, it consists of two nouns (Man + boobs). But unlike the others, these two words have become fused together. Sometimes words like this are called Portmanteaus. Some well-known examples of such words include:

• Brunch (breakfast + lunch)
• Motel (motor + hotel)
• Boxercise (boxing + exercise)
• Emoticon (emotion + icon)
• Wikipedia (wiki + encyclopedia)

This is the first time I have ever seen the term Moobs. Perhaps more familiar to me are Man Boobs (that doesn’t mean that I have a pair). The results of a Google fight would suggest that Man boobs are more common than Moobs.

Moobs → Approx. 0.3 million Google hits
“Man boobs” → Approx 0.8 million Google hits

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

I heard about man bras on the news a couple of months ago. You would assume that these have been designed for men with moobs. But judging from the advert below, this is not the case:

In order to clarify things, I would suggest that the company adopts the following slogan:

“You don’t need moobs for a man bra.”

I wonder if that model knew what he was getting involved in when he said yes to the job.