Fritinancy

Logic-ini

With Charlie Brown, it was the football and the kite-eating tree. With Cathy, year after year, the nemesis is the swimsuit department: 

 

(Click image to view larger.)

Yes, I'm a little obsessed with the whole -ini issue. What I find interesting here is the use of the -ini suffix in its Italian diminutive sense--as though tankini meant "little tank" (and bikini, by extension, meant "little bik," and logic-ini meant "a little bit of logic").

To recap: first there was bikini- from Bikini Atoll in the northern Pacific ("bikini" is a Micronesian word that possibly means coconut surface). Because the first syllable of bikini reminded Westerners of  the Greek bi- prefix meaning "two," bikini begat monokini. Then -kini took on independent suffixhood, turning into tankini, mankini, and burkini.

Now -ini is shedding its k and taking on a teeny-weeny life of its own.

(Hat tip: MJF.) 

Three-Word Slogans, Part 2

Turns out that corporate America isn't the only place you'll find those meaningless slogans consisting of three imperative verbs. The pseudonymous Melvin Quince, posting at Language Log, reports with some dismay that he recently attended a linguistics conference whose slogan, emblazoned on each participant's "fancy folder," was:

Innovate ·  Connect ·  Achieve

"I stared at the unrequested folder for some time, thinking of Orwell," Quince writes,"and trying to imagine what ghastly school of business management Newspeak must have spawned the slogan."

He reacted as many of us do when exhorted by similar tripartite commands:

The slogan served only to make me feel somewhat distracted, bullied, and alienated. I resolved to disobey. I refused to innovate throughout the weekend; I did only things I had done before, like slipping out of sessions early to down a manhattan. I connected as little as possible. And I did not attempt to achieve.

Commenter Marc offers "the perfect antidote" to these slogans and other "B-school nonsense"--Despair.com (a distinguished member of my blogroll), whose home page urges us to:

Customize. Personalize. Demoralize.

Declaration of Independence

Here's what I've come to expect from Online Etymology Dictionary, which calls itself "a map of the wheel- ruts of modern English" and which counts among its sources the Oxford English Dictionary (second edition) and Holthauzen's Etymologisches Wörterbuch der Englischen Sprache:

• An authoritative analysis of word origins
• An objective, academic, rather staid writing style
• An even-handed approach to the many varieties of English used throughout the world. 

Which is to say, I was startled to come across this partisan entry:

gaol

 see jail, you tea-sodden football hooligan.

The Algorithm

Amazon thinks that because I bought English As She Is Spoke: Being a Comprehensive Phrasebook of the English Language, Written by Men to Whom English Was Utterly Unknown, I will most likely also be interested in All Known Metal Bands, .

In this corner: English As She Is Spoke, an English phrasebook for Portuguese students written in 1855 by José da Fonseca, who didn't know English. He didn't even have an English-Portuguese dictionary. According to the editor of my 2004 revised edition (the one I bought from Amazon):

What he did have, though, was a Portuguese-to-French phrasebook and a French-to-English dictionary. The bizarre linguistic train wreck that ensued ... became celebrated as a bizarre masterpiece of unintentional humor, and it went on to be reprinted around the world for the rest of the 19th century[.]

(I forgive the editor for repeating "bizarre," because it's wholly justified. To take just one example: "The noise run that is by to have given a box on the ear to a of them." Amazingly, this sentence was rendered completely by hand, without the use of an automated translator!)

And in the other corner: All Known Metal Bands by Dan Nelson, just published by McSweeney's. It's an alphabetical listing of 50,000 names of metal bands. No subgenres, no places of origin, just ... names.

Amazon, you know me better than I know myself!

Word of the Week: Woonerf

Woonerf: A common space to be shared by pedestrians, bicyclists, and low-speed motor vehicles. Imported from the Netherlands, woonerf is being appropriated in North America and elsewhere as a traffic-calming tactic. In Dutch, "woonerf"--pronounced VOH-nurf--means "street for living"; the plural is "woonerven."

From "Taking Back the Streets," in the April 6 New York Times:

A woonerf, which is surfaced with paving blocks to signal a pedestrian-priority zone, is, in effect, an outdoor living room, with furniture to encourage the social use of the street. Surprisingly, it results in drastically slower traffic, since the woonerf is a people-first zone and cars enter it more warily. “The idea is that people shall look each other in the eye and maneuver in respect of each other,” [Danish urban planner Jan] Gehl said.

Other concepts mentioned in the article include play streets, bicycle boulevards, mental speed bumps ("street-side social activities that slow drivers without their knowing the foot is on the brake"), lanescapes (themed pedestrian walkways), and urban acupuncture ("First, plant a bodacious tree in the middle of an intersection...").

Read Michael Quinion's entry at World Wide Words comparing the concept of woonerf to that of a "home zone," a residential street in which motor vehicles take second place to people.

Coming Soon(-ish) to a Freezer Section Near You

I can't call this my latest naming project, because I completed the work more than a year ago. But it takes a long time for a new packaged food to make it into supermarkets, so it's only now that I can announce Sauté Your Way, a new freezer-to-stovetop "meal solutions" brand. ("Meal solutions" is what the grocery industry calls this sort of food-in-a-box.) The recipes combine Louisiana Gulf shrimp with three "classic, world-inspired sauce flavors" created by Chef Paul Prudhomme: Key Largo Lemon & Dill Sauce, New Orleans Roasted Garlic Sauce, and Asian Soywabi Sauce.

(Disclaimer: I did not name "soywabi sauce"; it's a blend of soy and wasabi. I didn't write the web copy, either. Nor have I seen or tasted any of the meals--yet.)

Karl Turner, CEO of A La Carte Specialty Foods in Westwego¹, Louisiana, contacted me last year and told me his company was launching a new line with several branding challenges. Unlike most frozen meals sold in supermarkets, A La Carte's new product would not be microwaveable, but rather would be cooked on a stovetop. The name needed to be an umbrella brand that would cover several flavors; in addition, although all of the initial recipes would include shrimp, at some point the company might introduce chicken recipes--so the brand name couldn't refer to any specific ingredient. Chef Paul's participation was important, Karl said--but was it important enough to be highlighted in the brand name, or could it be handled as a graphic element? (One of the company's internally generated--and rejected--names was "Me and the Chef.") The recipes were inspired by international flavors--should the brand say "global"? (Another rejected name: "World of Flavors.")

No single name could satisfy all of the naming objectives, so part of my assignment was to pinpoint those that were most important. Sauté Your Way matches closely with three objectives: It clearly communicates the cooking method--a key differentiator for this product. The French-but-familiar "sauté " echoes the French-but-familiar name of the parent company, A La Carte, and suggests a global, cosmopolitan perspective. (It's particularly apt for a company based in Louisiana, where the French heritage remains vibrant.) "Your Way" tells the customer that the meals can be "personalized," as the web copy puts it: add rice, pasta, or vegetables as you like.

Finally, "Sauté" and "Your Way" have matching meter and rhyme, which aids memorability.

The trademark registration was clear. Nice bonus: SauteYourWay.com was available as a web domain.

So far, Sauté Your Way is sold only in Louisiana, but I understand there are plans for a wider rollout. Bon appétit!

(Consumer caveat: all three Sauté Your Way recipes contain many ingredients whose names end in -ite and -ate.)

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¹ Wondering how Westwego got its name? Railroad cars passing through the town used to be marked in chalk with their direction. Most said "west we go."

Branded

Dear Jane Sample, who blogs anonymously from Canada about "what it's really like to work in advertising," asks:

Have you ever thought about how many brands you use in a typical day? Well I did and created a visual representation of my Typical Friday in Brands.

Check out Jane's logo-filled brand timeline here. The post went globally viral ("bubonic" is how one commenter put it) in just a couple of days. And now another blogger, Manhattan Offender, is posting a brand timeline in real time.

What does your branded day look like? 

Carpenters in the Forehead

Some words for hangover, like ours, refer prosaically to the cause: the Egyptians say they are “still drunk,” the Japanese “two days drunk,” the Chinese “drunk overnight.” The Swedes get “smacked from behind.” But it is in languages that describe the effects rather than the cause that we begin to see real poetic power. Salvadorans wake up “made of rubber,” the French with a “wooden mouth” or a “hair ache.” The Germans and the Dutch say they have a “tomcat,” presumably wailing. The Poles, reportedly, experience a “howling of kittens.” My favorites are the Danes, who get “carpenters in the forehead.” In keeping with the saying about the Eskimos’ nine words for snow*, the Ukrainians have several words for hangover. And, in keeping with the Jews-don’t-drink rule, Hebrew didn’t even have one word until recently. Then the experts at the Academy of the Hebrew Language, in Tel Aviv, decided that such a term was needed, so they made one up: hamarmoret, derived from the word for fermentation. (Hamarmoret echoes a usage of Jeremiah’s, in Lamentations 1:20, which the King James Bible translates as “My bowels are troubled.”)

-- From "A Few Too Many," about the causes of, and putative remedies for, hangovers, by Joan Acocella, The New Yorker, May 26, 2008. One over-the-counter "all-natural prevention formula," NoHang, comes in several package sizes, including the Bender (12 tablets), the Party Animal (24 tablets), and the It's Noon Somewhere (48 tablets).

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*The Eskimos' nine words for snow? In the old formulation, it was always "hundreds" or "dozens." Perhaps linguist Geoffrey K. Pullum, tireless debunker of the great Eskimo vocabulary hoax, is finally making inroads.

Color Me Perplexed

TypePad, which hosts this blog and many others, gave some of us a not-altogether-welcome surprise present earlier this week: a brand-new editor for composing posts. I hadn't asked for it, I'm not wild about it, and I'm particularly annoyed that I had to discover it by accident and then stumble around trying to decipher it. (I tend to glaze over when presented with a clutter of icons. I'm a word person through and through.) It took me an irritatingly long time to find where they'd hidden three basic blogging functions--categories, posting status, and trackbacks. Yes, it's easier to include a hypertext link, but the rest of the interface is slow and kludgey, and for all the "upgrading," it's still not possible to import text from MSWord.

On the other hand: many, many new colors in the palette! One hundred forty-four! Why? No clue. I mean, we're not Leonardo here. Wouldn't Crayola's classic 64 colors have sufficed? Personally, I'd be satisfied with four (black, red, green, blue)--in exchange for faster keyboard response. 

But then I noticed that--unlike in the old Compose editor--each color had a name that revealed itself when I moused over it. Now you've got my attention.

I moused over all 144 colors and arrived at this conclusion: TypePad created the palette and then realized--uh-oh!--that the colors needed names. So they assigned a few colors at random to a few interns who'd been idling around the water cooler, and then uploaded the color names without cross-checking, consulting a dictionary, or indeed applying common sense.

Apparently some of the interns were not only unpaid, they were also color-blind.

Let's take a look, shall we? I boldfaced the color names for emphasis until I got weary of all the interface problems and just gave up.

A-One

This post is brought to you by the letter A and the number 1.

That's "a" as in "indefinite article meaning one." Watch out for redundancies when using "a" before a monetary amount beginning with "[symbol] + one."

Case in point, from a Deborah Solomon interview with the actress Cynthia Nixon in Sunday's Times Magazine:

It’s got to cost a $100 million.

Take out your blue pencil and delete that "a." Why? Read the sentence aloud: "It's got to cost a one hundred million." You wouldn't say it that way; you'd say, "It's got to cost one hundred million." Write it the way you'd say it.

(As a test, substitute another dollar figure. "It's got to cost a $200 million"? No.)

You would use "a" in two cases:

• When the dollar figure is used as a modifier: "I bought a $100 trillion war, and all I got were these lousy poll numbers!"
• When you're expressing the amount in words rather than numbers: "A hundred trillion? That's beginning to sound like real money!"

Another common redundancy: repeating "dollars" after "$100 million." The dollar symbol--$--is pronounced "dollars," and does not need to be spelled out.