What does 'Nix Pix Shplix Queen' mean?
August 2, 2022 12:44 AM Subscribe
There is a throwaway joke in The Naked Gun where there's a Variety newspaper headline that reads Nix Pix Shplix Queen. I understand the joke but at the same time I don't.
Yes, I get that it's a play on a famous Variety headline that read Sticks Nix Hick Pix. I also get that the joke is that Variety uses its quirky jargon in its headlines, in contrast to other headlines from normal papers shown in the movie that read "Banquet Disaster", "Queen's Reception a Fiasco" and "City Disgraced". (If anyone is not familiar with the scene in the movie, the doofus cop thought the queen was in danger and ran at her but it ended up with him on top of her on a table with her legs around him and a million photographers were present.)
'nix' means to reject, cancel, or destroy, but that doesn't make any sense here. Or is it being used as a modifier, like "nix pix" as some kind of old-timey term for compromising pictures, making the headline roughly translate as "naughty pictures vex queen"? How do you get from 'shplix' to vex/disturb/embarrass/etc?
Again, I get 95% of this joke and I feel silly for asking but I'd like to get 100%.
Yes, I get that it's a play on a famous Variety headline that read Sticks Nix Hick Pix. I also get that the joke is that Variety uses its quirky jargon in its headlines, in contrast to other headlines from normal papers shown in the movie that read "Banquet Disaster", "Queen's Reception a Fiasco" and "City Disgraced". (If anyone is not familiar with the scene in the movie, the doofus cop thought the queen was in danger and ran at her but it ended up with him on top of her on a table with her legs around him and a million photographers were present.)
'nix' means to reject, cancel, or destroy, but that doesn't make any sense here. Or is it being used as a modifier, like "nix pix" as some kind of old-timey term for compromising pictures, making the headline roughly translate as "naughty pictures vex queen"? How do you get from 'shplix' to vex/disturb/embarrass/etc?
Again, I get 95% of this joke and I feel silly for asking but I'd like to get 100%.
"Shpleck" seems to be Yiddish (?) for sex, I think it is a bit of a non-grammatical way of saying people don't want to see pictures of the Queen fucked.
I can't find any reliable sources outside of Urban Dictionary and a few other sites that define shpleck, but it is a weird coincidence if that's not the word. A lot of Yiddish sites seem to use asterixis when dealing with curse words which is not helpful at all. It seems closely related to schtup which is probably more common, it could be a regional variation? Unhelpfully the sites that do define shpleck define it as "Jewish" and not Yiddish/Hebrew/Russian.
posted by geoff. at 1:04 AM on August 2, 2022 [2 favorites]
I can't find any reliable sources outside of Urban Dictionary and a few other sites that define shpleck, but it is a weird coincidence if that's not the word. A lot of Yiddish sites seem to use asterixis when dealing with curse words which is not helpful at all. It seems closely related to schtup which is probably more common, it could be a regional variation? Unhelpfully the sites that do define shpleck define it as "Jewish" and not Yiddish/Hebrew/Russian.
posted by geoff. at 1:04 AM on August 2, 2022 [2 favorites]
A little bit like splice and split?
posted by eastboundanddown at 1:12 AM on August 2, 2022
posted by eastboundanddown at 1:12 AM on August 2, 2022
So "no pictures of a spliced/split queen" as a fairly crude (so pretty on brand IIRC) description
posted by eastboundanddown at 1:13 AM on August 2, 2022
posted by eastboundanddown at 1:13 AM on August 2, 2022
Oh hang on, from your description I imagined two ppl falling together front first. Maybe not having seen the pic
posted by eastboundanddown at 1:14 AM on August 2, 2022
posted by eastboundanddown at 1:14 AM on August 2, 2022
Nonsense shmonsense
posted by trig at 1:31 AM on August 2, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by trig at 1:31 AM on August 2, 2022 [1 favorite]
It could mean something like, "Useless/stupid police officer screws Queen."
Or maybe it was a little extra joke, like they were having such at good time at their, er, schplixing that they tried a few different positions. I'll leave that to you all to figure out.
posted by flug at 2:34 AM on August 2, 2022 [1 favorite]
- Nix = useless, dumb, "nothing," no good, good-for-nothing (Given that the second & third words here are the subject & verb, this first word must be a modifier of the subject, i.e. an adjective. So it's describing something about, some characteristic of, our police officer.)
- Pix = Police, maybe shortened "police officer" or some such. (Regardless, this has to be the subject of this sentence, so I think it has to refer to our police officer somehow - the person who did something, which is definitely thge police officer here.)
- Shplix = Regardless of exact derivation, this is clearly a description of what the police officer is doing to the queen. So screws, fucks, lays, sexually assaults, whatever your preferred exact description of this "sliding the length of the table groin-to-groin" situation is. I see it as related to "split"/"splits" which is definitely a part of what's going on there. See for example definition 5 here. The "Shpleck" explanation makes sense, too. (Similarly, this is definitely the verb of this sentence, so somehow it describes the action our police officer in regards to the Queen.)
- Queen = the Queen (Direct object of the sentence.)
Or maybe it was a little extra joke, like they were having such at good time at their, er, schplixing that they tried a few different positions. I'll leave that to you all to figure out.
posted by flug at 2:34 AM on August 2, 2022 [1 favorite]
For me, it reads clearly as “No pics, Queen explains!” Nix pixs = no pictures, Shplix = Explains - because presumably after the rush of photographers, there would be an attempt to stop them, but obviously all the papers got them. But I don’t know why I have that instinctual read of that; though I did use to read a lot of shortened headlines.
posted by corb at 5:11 AM on August 2, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by corb at 5:11 AM on August 2, 2022 [1 favorite]
So digging further I found a more reputable dictionary for Yiddish words and slang, I could not find "shpleck"but found "shpilkes" which means "nervous energy" which also fits, "No pics, nervous queen!"
Given how rare the usage is, though the article notes it was used in Coffee Talk, I could see how a writer would have misremembered or misheard it. You can hear Mike Myers pronounce it here starting at 26 seconds. I'm nearly certain that shplix is Yiddish for something and I'm guessing slang, I'm surprised no one has brought this up! Unfortunately this very thread is making Google and bots now, making Google harder to do.
posted by geoff. at 5:40 AM on August 2, 2022
Given how rare the usage is, though the article notes it was used in Coffee Talk, I could see how a writer would have misremembered or misheard it. You can hear Mike Myers pronounce it here starting at 26 seconds. I'm nearly certain that shplix is Yiddish for something and I'm guessing slang, I'm surprised no one has brought this up! Unfortunately this very thread is making Google and bots now, making Google harder to do.
posted by geoff. at 5:40 AM on August 2, 2022
The joke, such as it is, is that the headline is incomprehensible, riffing on tabloids’ tendency to use slang and jargon in headlines.
posted by zamboni at 5:43 AM on August 2, 2022 [8 favorites]
posted by zamboni at 5:43 AM on August 2, 2022 [8 favorites]
I think zamboni and trig are right. The "nix pix" part is establishing the allusion to Variety, the "queen" part is tying it to the immediate plot, but the key word to me is "schplix". Words that start with "sch" and rhyme with another word in the sentence are generally emphasizing ridiculousness. See, e.g., trig's comment "nonsense schmonsense". It's basically saying "I'm aware of this other thing, and I'm making fun of it", which is the essence of the Naked Gun franchise.
posted by kevinbelt at 7:00 AM on August 2, 2022 [3 favorites]
posted by kevinbelt at 7:00 AM on August 2, 2022 [3 favorites]
As I read it, "nix" in this case is a play on "knickers," which is British slang for women's (especially old ladies') undergarments. So the nix pix are pictures of the Queen's knickers. [cf. "dick picks" in our modern age]
So the "nix pix" that were taken schplix the queen. schplix is the gag here, which is a nonsense word that is needed to continue the "-ix" trend and satirize Variety. That it sounds like a Yiddish word and that it could credibly be interpreted as "embarrass" or "annoy" make it all fit and work together.
posted by AgentRocket at 9:18 AM on August 2, 2022 [1 favorite]
So the "nix pix" that were taken schplix the queen. schplix is the gag here, which is a nonsense word that is needed to continue the "-ix" trend and satirize Variety. That it sounds like a Yiddish word and that it could credibly be interpreted as "embarrass" or "annoy" make it all fit and work together.
posted by AgentRocket at 9:18 AM on August 2, 2022 [1 favorite]
The joke, such as it is, is that the headline is incomprehensible, riffing on tabloids’ tendency to use slang and jargon in headlines.
Zamboni's right. Don't overthink it.
posted by Artifice_Eternity at 12:47 PM on August 2, 2022
Zamboni's right. Don't overthink it.
posted by Artifice_Eternity at 12:47 PM on August 2, 2022
Response by poster: Barring someone coming out of the woodwork to say that sphlix is some obscure insider term, I think I can accept that it's funny words.
In my current head-canon, I'm going with "'Get rid of these pictures,' Pleads Queen" which kind of almost scans. If they had written it as a quotation 'Nix Pix' Sphlix Queen that would be more conclusive.
posted by Otto Franz Joseph Leopold von Soxen-Puppetten at 7:58 PM on August 2, 2022 [1 favorite]
In my current head-canon, I'm going with "'Get rid of these pictures,' Pleads Queen" which kind of almost scans. If they had written it as a quotation 'Nix Pix' Sphlix Queen that would be more conclusive.
posted by Otto Franz Joseph Leopold von Soxen-Puppetten at 7:58 PM on August 2, 2022 [1 favorite]
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posted by JZig at 1:04 AM on August 2, 2022 [1 favorite]