How did "flavored" come to mean "distracted"?

Question

There is a scene in the movie Beautiful Girls:

Marty: Are you OK?

Willie: Yeah. Yeah, I'm... Why?

Marty: You seem a little flavored today.

Willie: No! No, I'm cool.

Marty: Cool.

Willie: Yeah. So, tell me something. What do you kids...? What is it you do, kids your age, on the weekend?

Marty: Well, what we've been doing lately is smoking massive amounts of drugs, binging on Entenmann's and listening to Pink Floyd.

Willie: Really?

Marty: You are flavored today.

Willie: Oh, you're kidding?

Marty: The Entenmann's part was true.

Major dictionaries don't have this usage, so I turned to Urban Dictionary which lists it as "distracted, preoccupied, generally out-of-it, not lucid". This definition makes sense in the context, but I am wondering how "flavored" came to mean distracted. Is it a regional or dated usage?

Answer 1

I wouldn't consider the Urban Dictionary to be an authority - anyone can add a definition and it gets upvoted or downvoted. The entry you refer to currently has 23 upvotes and 18 downvotes, and that's all the attention it has had in the 17 years since it was written.

I haven't personally heard the word used in this way, but I've checked another transcript of the movie and it agreed with your quotation so, evidently, it was a saying. Perhaps it was particularly fashionable at the time the movie was made? But I think the fact it hasn't reached recognised dictionaries is noteworthy.

In a literal sense, adding flavour to something taints it - usually in a good way. Foods can have many flavours all at the same time. For example, Cherry Cola tastes of cola, but it also has a taste of cherry. It could be argued that the additional flavour detracts from, or dilutes the original taste.

From the literal use, you can see how it might be used figuratively to say that someone has something extra on their mind, something tainting them, or diluting their attention, making them less than themselves. It certainly could be a "distraction" in this specific example, but it seems like it might have broader use than just that.

Answer 2

Flavored normally means something that is not in it's original taste anymore and a new flavor/taste has been added to it.
So flavored would here mean, that the person is distracted and is not in his original/default mood.

You couldn't not find the word in normal dictionaries, because it might be a made-up term and not a literal word with a proper meaning. It's something that is taken by the author to be metaphorically understood by the reader.