Programme 26: showbiz

Showbiz. This is probably one of the most popular abbreviations of a word that took place in the 20th century in the United States. It's an abbreviation - showbiz - of show business. And, to begin with, it was written as two separate words: show /space/ biz; still is, to some extent, but increasingly these days, you see it written as a single word, showbiz, and pronounced like that. It’s actually been around since the 1940s, very wide use indeed as a noun. "That’s show biz!" they used to say in all kinds of circumstances, where something was happening that was unexpected, or something was going off the rails, or somebody lost their job, or some special circumstance came up: "that’s show biz!". And it was used as an adjective too. "We’re going to have a show biz treatment tonight" or "…a show biz tribute"…or something of that kind. It hasn’t actually developed very many other uses as yet (these shortened forms often don’t, you know), but it’s actually something that I think is going to come in the near future. I heard for instance an adjective form "going show-bizzy" – that’s b-I-z-z-y, not b-u-s-y – meaning 'typical of show biz', in the last 5-10 years. showbiz - přeneseně: když se děje něco nečekaného, mimořádného nebo nepřístojného separate words - slova psaná zvlášť to some extent - do určité míry to go off the rails - zbláznit se