They let us back into The Grill today (we didn't even need to use our Amy Pascal masks) where we spied former Sony exec Andy Kaplan and dined with Variety TV editor Michael Schneider who was so kind to break down Variety-speak for us.

"Prexy," of course, means president in the weird moonman language of the venerable trade. But "studio topper"?

"That's if you're too busy to look up the person's actual title," Schneider confides.

Instead of trying to remember if someone is the senior executive vice president of distribution assistant managers or the executive senior vice president of distribution managing assistants, "you just say 'studio topper.'"

What does it take to get new lingo introduced? Schneider says he's not sure, but he's been trying to get the trade to use the nickname The Cow Network for The CW (so far The Green Network seems to be the front-runner, on account of the net's atrociously green-tinted ad campaign).

Our choice would be The Unwatched Network, but that may be why nobody asks us.