March Linkfest

Spring forward; link back:

Here's one form of March Madness even non-basketball fans will enjoy: the annual Name of the Year bracketology. It'll be hard to improve on last year's NOTY winner, Barkevious Mingo; this year's contenders include Coke Wisdom O'Neal, Pina Gentile, and my personal favorite, Nohjay Nimpson.

By the way, "March Madness" dates back to 1939, but until 1982 the term was used only for Illinois high-school basketball. Read more about the phrase's litigious history (use it in non-approved marketing at your peril) at Slate.

*

Can you identify famous brands from only their colors, a visual hint, and a cryptic verbal clue? Test your savvy with this very clever brand quiz devised by the folks at VYRE, a London "marketing resource management" company.

*

My favorite ad this month: this spot by TBWA Brussels for a natural-gas company. According to AdFreak, where I discovered it, the ad required "four days of shooting, more than 40 crew members, four cameras and several kilometers of yarn." Be sure to watch the making-of video, too.  

*

Speaking of excellence in advertising, check out this collection at The Financial Brand of ads for financial institutions. "Excellent" may not be an accurate descriptor for the Bucks First FCU ad; "violent and awesome" pretty much says it.

*

Not violent, but definitely awesome: copywriter Wayne Geyer's website. He had me at "Solutions for People Who Overuse the Word 'Solution,'" but he outdoes himself with the Cheeseburgers section. I discovered Mr. Geyer on Twitter, by the way, and you should, too.

*

If you're an editor, or if you just care a lot about language, you'll appreciate the nifty custom copyediting searches over at the Copyediting blog. The first one searches more than 60 Web sites related to grammar, usage, style, and language; the second is a custom Google Books search of more than 600 language-related books and journals. Don't you love the Internet?

*

In last month's linkfest I introduced you to hella, the proposed SI prefix for 10^27. This month, say hello to the Rosenfeld, a proposed unit of energy savings equivalent to 3 billion kilowatt-hours per year. It would be named for Dr. Arthur Rosenfeld of the Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory, who is known as "the godfather of energy efficiency."

Of course, you already know about the Friedman Unit.

Comments

[Mark Allen]

Kudos to your friend Wayne Geyer for coming all the way from Texas and sniffing out the Thurman as the place to cheeseburger in Columbus, Ohio.