In the current climate of stupid, meaningless words being added to the Oxford Dictionary it’s a breath of fresh air to hear that the phonetic rendering of popular dance music beat “untz untz untz” has been including in this year’s edition.
The listing claims that the term originated on the cleft pallet of a Detroit beatboxer in 1979 and since that time became synonymous with the driving drum beat that is the feature of most forms of dance music.
“This is the first nonsensical onomatopoeic word from the world of dance music that has been given official blessing by the dictionary overlords,” gushed one dance music fan. “It’s only a matter of time before they make an entry for other commonly used dance music terms tops off, scaldy, k-hole and wub.”
“If they’re going to let selfie and bootlylicious in then untz absolutely deserves its place in there because it’s both an actual found sound and artistically and culturally relevant, whereas the other two aren’t,” he added.
The expression is most commonly heard rattling around the heads of hungover office worker on a Monday morning, or in a conversation in which one friend is trying to find the name of a track from another friend by mimicing the untz sound.
“Yeah that’s when I use it, I’ll turn to a mate and say ‘you know that track, it goes untz untz untz and then has a kind of uplifting piano bit before dropping’ is an example of the sort of thing that I’ll say,” explained the raver. “In lieu of lyrics untz is the only tool we have, except for Shazam.”
Reports from the Oxford committee who decided on untz’s addition to the dictionary indicate that it was chosen for inclusion in a bid to preserve the word before Shazam causes the phrase to go into misuse as people no longer need to mimic the sound in order to jog the memory of a friend about a particular track that Surgeon dropped towards the end.
Other words and phrases from the clubbing scene that have been suggested as possible additions to the dictionary include “doing a Guetta” which is broadly similar to the phrase “selling out”, “being Aoki” a term related to US clown Steve Aoki and his current attempt to move away from his cake throwing, gimp persona in a grasp at credibility that is analogous to a Nazi war criminal moving to Argentina and changing his name.
