This is, keep your English up to date from BBClearning English.com.

On this week's programme, John Aetto explains the origin, meaning, and the use of the word bride Zilla.

Bride Zilla.

Weddings can be stressful occasions.

You know how it is.

The closer the big day approaches, the more wound up everyone involved gets.

The bride-to-be throws tantrums if every small detail of the preparations isn't perfect.

The bride's father wants to take over the whole affair and run it himself without consulting

the happy couple.

The bridegroom's mother, losing her son to a woman who doesn't come up to her own high standards,

interferes at every turn.

The ever resourceful English language now has words for all three of them.

The Pushi father is a Dad Zilla.

The possessive mother, a Mom'silla, and any obnoxious bride to be is a bride-zilla.

This last was the coinage that started the trend, in the USA in the mid-1990s and it can cover the whole

range of bridly imperfections from spitefulness towards the bridesmaids to wedding present greed. It can be applied to bride

grooms too. The American singer Katie Perry recently called her fiancé, the British comedian Russell Brand, a bridezilla, because he was getting

over excited about their forthcoming wedding.

The word was based, of course, on Godzilla, the name of a fearsome dinosaur-like monster originally

created for a Japanese film in 1954. The original Japanese form of its name,

Gojira, means literally Guerrilla Whale. Not a very nice thing to be compared to, so all you bridezillas, dad zillas and

momzillas out there. Just calm down.

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