couch potato
n. Slang.
A person who spends much time sitting or lying down, usually watching television.
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A person who spends much time sitting or lying down, usually watching television.
Very few words have a birthday so precise, and so precisely known, as couch potato. It was on July 15, 1976, we are told, that couch potato came into being, uttered by Tom Iacino of Pasadena, California, during a telephone conversation. He was a member of a Southern California group humorously opposing the fads of exercise and healthy diet in favor of vegetating before the TV and eating junk food (1973). Because their lives centered on television--the boob tube (1966)--they called themselves boob tubers. Iacino apparently took the brilliant next step and substituted potato as a synonym for tuber. Thinking of where that potato sits to watch the tube, he came up with couch potato.
Or so the story goes, as told in the subsequent registration of Couch Potato as a trademark. In any case, when the new phrase reached the ears of Robert Armstrong, another member of the boob tubers, he drew a cartoon of a potato on a couch, formed a club called the Couch Potatoes, registered the trademark and began merchandising Couch Potato paraphernalia, from T shirts to dolls. He published a newsletter called The Tuber's Voice: The Couch Potato Newsletter and a book, Dr. Spudd's Etiquette for the Couch Potato.
If the story ended there, couch potato would have been as passing a fad as the "pet rock" (1975) of the same vintage. But since the 1970s the tube has grown more alluring and the couch potato culture more compelling, especially with the 1980s invention of the zapper (1985), or remote control. No longer a cartoon character, the couch potato is now one of us.
The noun has one meaning:
Meaning #1:
an idler who spends much time on a couch (usually watching television)
A couch potato refers to a person who spends most of his or her free time sitting or lying on a couch. This stereotype often refers to lazy
and overweight men who watch a lot of television,
sometimes in their underwear and sometimes drinking beer. Generally speaking, the term refers to a lifestyle in which children or adults don't get
enough physical activity.
The term "couch potato" was first coined in 1976 by a friend of American underground comics artist Robert Armstrong. In the early-1980s, he registered the term as a trademark with the US government; he also co-authored a book with Jack Mingo, called The Official Couch Potato Handbook, which delves into the lives of couch potatoes.[1] [2]
The term eventually entered common American vocabulary, generally defining one who unceasingly watches television as a form of "Transcendental Vegetation (TV for short)." The phrase was entered into the Oxford English Dictionary in 1993. Mingo, the Minister of Information and Propaganda for the official Couch Potatoes organization, explained why the potato was chosen as a vegetable role model: "We're an underground movement, we're all eyes when planted in front of the TV, vegetation is an important part of our existence, and we're Tubers. Get it?"
Amongst Canadians, adhering to colloquial vernacular, the couch potato is referred to as the Chesterfield Spud or a Jon Whyte.
Some studies have said that the "couch potato lifestyle" is a serious health hazard to its practitioners[3]; in the United Kingdom, a plan of the Prime Minister's Strategy Unit tried attempts "to combat the couch potato culture" to "[improving the U.K.'s] international sporting performance."[4]
Studies presented at the 2003 meeting of the American College of Sports Medicine suggested that there could be a genetic basis for the "couch potato lifestyle".[5]
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Copyrights:
![]() | Dictionary. The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition Copyright © 2007, 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Updated in 2007. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved. Read more | |
![]() | Word Origin. America in So Many Words, by David K.Barnhart and Allan A. Metcalf. Copyright © 1997 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved. Read more | |
![]() | WordNet. WordNet 1.7.1 Copyright © 2001 by Princeton University. All rights reserved. Read more | |
![]() | Wikipedia. This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Couch potato". Read more |
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