Variety has its own Web site now, which is pretty cool if, e.g., you want
to find the current U.S. box office for a film:
http://www.variety.com/dbox/index.asp
TITANIC is now at $242,748,914, in case you were wondering.
But the coolest is a dictionary of Variety slang! As they explain:
Almost from its launch in 1905, Variety has used its
own, distinctive "slanguage" in headlines and stories,
words like "ankle," which refers to someone leaving
(say, walking away from) a job, or "whammo," which
refers to something terrific, especially box office
performance. In part it was a device to fit long words
into small headlines, but it was also to create a cluby
feel among the paper's entertainment industry
readers. People in the business understood "thrush";
those outside the business, well, they weren't Variety's
target readers anyway. Now that Variety is being
made available to to the whole World Wide Web, we
offer the following glossary of terms, most of which
you're likely to see while scanning this site.
You'll find it at:
http://www.variety.com/slang/index.asp
----Jeremy Butler