Have you noticed their recent proliferation in culture? They are mentioned, shown, discussed, denigrated, and used for amazing things.
First, lets discuss shambling. Shambling is what zombies do. The shamble...they come at their victims with a stiff-armed shambling walk. The make their way toward their victims at a shambling pace.
As far as I can determine, the ONLY context in which we use the word SHAMBLING is when we are discussing zombies. Technically shambling is just a style of walk...a slow, awkward gait.
But we only seem to ever speak of Zombies shambling. How very weird. Others shuffle and things may be in a SHAMBLES, but only zombies are described as shambling.
Zombies have entered not only pop culture (where they have been since Romero made Night of the Living Dead) but now they have entered advertising. A recent car commercial has a very urbane, neatly dressed zombie driving along in a new car. He tend to lose fingers, but that is just an occupational hazard when you are a reanimated desiccated decaying corpse.
Let's not forget that the CDC has preparations online for a zombie apocalypse. It is viewable here.
Then there is the zombie proof house in Poland. See it here.
And the weird Toshiba commercial with the 'for want of a nail' approach...If the newest laptop goes out without a shockproof hard drive, its that zombie apocalypse!
And lastly, they appear on magazine covers. I refer, of course, to the recent Newsweek cover showing an algorithmically aged Diana apparently out and about with Kate. This was done to commemorate what would have been her 50th Birthday, but as one commenter said, wouldn't NOT making her a zombie have been a better gift?
I wonder if she shambled as she walked with Kate during the photo shoot?
Thoughts?
