Lingo And Acronyms

Awesome!

Denizens of Chuck related discussion groups, boards, blogs, and podcasts have gotten used to more than a few short-hand terms and frequently used phrases that appear without explanation for newer fans.

If you catch us using a term that seems odd, outrageous, subtle, or using an unexpanded acronym, you may find your explanation here. If you don’t see it, please let us know, and we’ll add it!

• Absotutely – An expression uttered by Morgan several times to connote total agreement and understanding. It is a concatenation of “absolutely” and “positively”.
• Aces – A joyful explicative used by the Bartowski family to denote something that pleases or satisfies them greatly.
• Angst – Pretentious psychobabble for anxiety, used as shorthand to refer to major setbacks in the relationship between Chuck and Sarah. It describes the mental state of the characters, the atmosphere surrounding them in their interactions, and the state of the audience when things are not going well (or even backwards) for Chuck and Sarah.
• Awesome – Frequently uttered by Dr. Devon Christian Woodcomb, the word is used to describe a singularly happy, important, meaningful or profound event in his life. It is also his adopted nickname, and frequently used to describe him, his life and his family (as in, “The Awesomes are coming to visit us, Chuck!”).
• Charah – The deliberate concatenation of Chuck and Sarah into one name to denote their shared relationship.  The term is thought to be going out fashion in favor of “Walkertowski“.
• Children Love Me! – Phrase uttered without sarcasm or irony be the insanely evil Alexei Volkoff upon learning that Frost (the object of his weird affections) has a family. He’s really a nice guy, you know. And the fact that children love him is the proof!
• Chuckwin’s  Law  – The observed phenomena that every discussion about the show Chuck eventually turns into an S3 discussion if it continues long enough.
• CRM – Acronym for Central Relationship Misunderstanding. Coined by Maureen Ryan, it describes the main conceit of Chuck, where “[f]or three seasons now, we’ve seen Chuck and Sarah not hook up, date others, misunderstand each others’ intentions and desires and otherwise reside on an increasingly labored merry-go-round that kept them apart.”
• Don’t Freak Out – A phase spoken often in Chuck starting with the pilot episode, it contains the concepts of “Chill out, bro!”, “Things are not what they seem.” and “I’m here to protect you.” for the purpose of calming someone down. It indicates that the intended recipient is having a hard time accepting the situation or focusing on something important.
• EPK – Acronym for Electronic Press Kit. It’s the bundle of promos and extra features the network makes available to affiliates and media to promote the episode.
• GENIUS! – Chuck’s over-the-top enthusiasm for the European practice of pastries for breakfast every day, adapted by the blog as an expression of over-the-top enthusiasm for how much we enjoyed Chuck.
• Get Right – Jeff’s phrase as he inhales high grade chloroform. Used to denote attempts to get into proper states of mind for the task at hand.
• It would be unprofessional not to – Spoken by (the evil, indescribable Fulcrum agent) Vincent and by Chuck, the phrase is used sarcastically to indicate a moment of conflict when the outcome is apparently unavoidable. That seldom proves to be the case, however.
• Misery Arc– a term used, mainly by ‘shippers, to describe S3, or sometimes just episodes 3.05-3.12.
• Not what a normal (fill in the blank) would do. – Spoken by Sarah when Chuck turns over his CIA pay packet to assure that Ellie has her dream wedding, the phase has used to describe actions that are above and beyond the call, most notably, The “We Heart Chuck” campaign (as in, this is “not what a normal fan would do”, when he donates to a worthy cause).
• NSNL – Acronym, standing for “No secrets, no lies”, the pact made between Chuck and Sarah in The Honeymooners and reinforced between them in The Anniversary.
• OOC – Acronym, standing for Out of Character.
• PLI– Acronym, standing for “Potential Love Interest”, a termed used by TPTB to describe certain guest stars the summer before Season 3 was created and aired. OLI (for Outside Love Interest) or even LI (for Love Interest) are often substituted since, let’s face it, the “potential” part quickly was made superfluous.
• Sham –  The very fitting term for the Shaw and “Sam” relationship.  I don’t think any of us actually know who “Sam” was, and neither does Sarah.
• shipper or ‘shipper – taken from the the word “relationship”, used on any show to describe fans who fixate on a particular relationship.  Usually the primary or central relationship, but theoretically shippers may fixate on and root for any particular pairing.  The overwhelming majority of shippers in this fandom focus on Chuck and Sarah.  Also exists in verb form, “to ship” a relationship.
• SQUEE! – The sound heard emanating from Chuck fans across several continents, first noticed near the beginning of Chuck vs. The Colonel in season 2, and several times throughout the airing of Chuck vs. The Other Guy in season 3. It denotes unbridled pleasure and delight in the hearts of ‘shippers everywhere over the course of events in the relationship between Chuck and Sarah, especially events generally not suited for prime time television. (Not that there’s anything wrong with that…)
• SRD – Acronym, standing for Sibling Relationship Deception, used to denote Chuck keeping his true relationship with Sarah a secret from his sister Ellie. The irony is, of course, that Ellie knew about the real nature of their relationship even before Chuck and Sarah.  Many thanks to frequent commenter lucian for this acronym.
• TBBT – Acronym, standing for the CBS television show, The Big Bang Theory
• That Guy – Spoken by Sarah in Chuck vs. The Ring to describe Chuck and encourage him to embrace his destiny.  How may times do you have to be a hero before you realize you are that guy?
• TPTB – Acronym, standing for The Powers That Be, referring to the creators, producers, directors and writers of the show, and sometimes to the network executives and corporate owners of Chuck. Often used when we really aren’t sure who’s responsible for a particular decision.
• WT/WT – short for “will they/won’t they.”  Basic television doctrine for writing a romance.  String the characters along past the bounds of plausibility.  For Chuck this is the Chuck/Sarah period until “Chuck vs the Other Guy” (3.13) when things changed for good.