Fritinancy

June Linkfest

It actually feels like summer around here for a change, as opposed to the customary June Gloom, so these solstice links are even more solsticious:

1. I've submitted captions to the New Yorker cartoon-caption contest but have never come close to winning. Obviously, what I needed was a system like the one used by recent winner Patrick House, who reveals his secrets in "How to Win the New Yorker Caption Contest," in Slate. His mantra: "You are not trying to write the funniest caption; you are trying to win The New Yorker's caption contest."

2. Q. Pheevr's swell "What Mama Don't Allow, Linguistically Speaking" is a treat for blues-loving linguistics geeks. Here's a verse to give you a taste; be sure to read all the comments, too:

Mama don't allow no back-formation round here.
No, Mama don't allow no back-formation round here.
Well, we don't care what Mama don't allow;
Gonna back-formate anyhow.
Mama don't allow no back-formation round here.

(I have a few verses of my own I'd like to add, but I'm confounded by Q. Pheevr's comment format, which seems to be in Swedish. If you're reading this, Q, please send help!)

3. I'm still having fun with Twitter, the microblogging service that limits posts, called "tweets," to 140 characters. (Try it yourself: sign up--it's free--and then follow my tweets by typing Fritinancy in the search field.) Twitter has a serious side, too, as Craig Stoltz explains in How Twitter Finally Taught Me to Be an Editor. Craig writes: "I find that every time I sit down to write a meaningful Tweet I hone my craft a bit more."

4. Twitter has also spawned a subgenre: Twaiku, or haiku posted on Twitter. Take a look at this fan wiki for definitions and inspiration.

5. Discover the meanings of balatronic, croodle, pinquescence, and more at Obsolete Word of the Day.

6. More fully researched, and thus more conducive to frittering, is Worthless Word for the Day (or WWFTD, pronounced "wifted"), which recently posted guerdon ("reward"), the winning word in the 2008 Scripps National Spelling Bee. Use the drop-down menu in the upper-right-hand corner to search the WWFTD dictionary, read the "worthless disclaimer," and pleasantly waste more time. (Update: link has been fixed, per comment.)

7. Lifehacker's "Best Online Tools for Word Nerds" includes some resources previously acknowledged in this blog as well as some that were new to me, including What Does That Mean? and Definr. (Hat tip: Kirinqueen.)

8. Wordcraft claims to have the largest list of eponyms on the web, but that's just the beginning. Wander around and discover lists of Christmas-carol words (gladsome, roundelay, swathe, etc.), "German lingo of mental states" (Anschauung, sprachgefühl, gemütlich, etc.) and "words concerning anti-black discrimination" (redlining, Beulah land, DWB, etc.) Excellent discussion board, too. (Hat tip: Goofy, via the Wordcraft discussion board.)

Special Effects

You probably know about the Doppler Effect, the change in frequency and length of a wave (for example, a sound wave) perceived by an observer who is moving relative to the source of the wave. The Doppler Effect explains why a train whistle sounds louder as the train approaches you, and fainter as it moves away. (Update: Unsurprisingly, I got this wrong. See Regan's comment for the accurate definition.)

The Doppler Effect is named for the Austrian mathematician and physicist Christian Doppler (1803–1853). Here's a list of some other eponymous effects; see whether you can identify (a) the person the effect was named for and (b) what phenomenon the effect names. With one exception, none of these "special effects" is particularly arcane; all describe phenomena the average person can understand. Answers after the jump.

1. Coolidge Effect
2. Droste Effect
3. Forer Effect
4. Fujiwhara Effect
5. Martha Mitchell Effect
6. McGurk Effect
7. Meissner Effect

B.Minus

San Francisco clothing designer Rebecca Beeson made her name with an eponymous women's line of soft, sexy, high-end cotton knit separates. In 2006, she launched a men's line. Instead of doing the predictable thing and calling it Rebecca Beeson Men, she cleverly named the new division B.Son--a crisp deconstruction of her own surname. The name is smart, distinctive, and modern.

So why do I give her only a B-minus for the effort? Because the B.Son website is an utter waste of  bandwidth. The only thing on it is a darkly pretentious video in which a glum, hirsute fellow mopes around smoking, drinking, and watching other people having diffident simulated sex. If he's wearing B.Son clothing it isn't evident. In fact, the site offers no clue whatsoever as to what B.Son sells. There's no "About Us" copy (not even something darkly pretentious). There's no store locator. There's no way to know you haven't stumbled onto someone's amateur video site. Very disappointing.

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Year Contest

Take a break from holiday shopping to vote for Merriam-Webster's word of the year (WOTY). The 20 nominated words -- "culled from frequent hits to Merriam-Webster OnLine and some popular submissions to Merriam-Webster's Open Dictionary" -- are:

• apathetic
• babymoon
• blamestorm
• charlatan
• conundrum
• cruft
• eleemosynary
• facebook
• hypocrite
• linkability
• melancholy
• Pecksniffian
• pretentious
• pugnacious
• quixotic
• sardoodledom
• sputum
• subpoena
• vanity sizing
• w00t [those are zeros, not O's]

On the M-W site you can click on each word to read its definition, but I'd have appreciated a little context as well. Why did Pecksniffian, sardoodledom, and quixotic--three wonderful eponyms--make this year's list? Subpoenas are in the news every year; why is subpoena a 2007 WOTY candidate? And wot's up with w00t--any clues, readers?

My vote goes to babymoon, a travel-industry term defined as "a short vacation for a couple before the birth of their child." The Doubletongued Dictionary has antedated the word to 1995, when childbirth educator and author Sheila Kitzinger claims to have coined it, but it went truly mainstream this year with a May 13 New York Times article.

Away With Words readers will recognize cruft as the noun form of this week's Word of the Week.

Last year's M-W WOTY was truthiness.

Update: Forgot to mention that the deadline for voting is Friday, Dec. 7.

(Via Language and Humor Blog.)

Answers to Airport Name Game

For the original quiz, go here.

1. Sioux City, Iowa. The airport's official name, Colonel Bud Day Field, honors George E. "Bud" Day, a Sioux City native and U.S. Air Force veteran of World War II, the Korean War, and the Vietnam War. Day is the most highly decorated U.S. military officer since General Douglas MacArthur. The airport, also known as Sioux Gateway Airport, was in the news lately because after 19 years its officials finally decided to stop fighting its FAA airport code: SUX. "If we can't beat 'em, we can make money off 'em," seems to be the general spirit.

2. Brasilia. As president of Brazil from 1956 to 1961, Juscelino Kubitschek de Olveira, whose mother was of Czech origin, oversaw the construction of the new capital city.

3. Toronto. Lester Bowles "Mike" Pearson was Canada's fourteenth prime minister, from 1963 to 1968.

4. Venice. The explorer Marco Polo (1254-1324) was born in Venice.

5. Warsaw. The airport in the Polish capital is named for the composer (1810-1849), who actually was born in Zelazowa Wola, in central Poland. He left his native country for Paris at age 20 and never returned.

6. Sydney. Charles Edward Kingsford-Smith (1897-1935) was an early Australian aviator.

7. Agana, Guam. This capital city's airport is named for Antonio Borja Won Pat (1908-1987), who was Guam's first delegate to the U.S. Congress.

8. Barrow, Alaska. Aviator Wiley Post and humorist Will Rogers died in an August 1935 plane crash near Point Barrow.

9. Gdańsk, Poland. The airport is named for the former Polish president (1990-1995) and co-founder of the Solidarity movement. The "W" on the the façade of the passenger terminal is adapted from Walesa's signature.

10. Oranjestad, Aruba. The airport is named for the current queen of the Netherlands (born 1938). The Caribbean island is in the Realm of the Kingdom of the Netherlands.

11. Beirut. Hariri, whose first name is also spelled Rafik or Rafiq, was Lebanon's prime minister from 1992 to 1998 and again from 2000 to 2004. He was assassinated in 2005.

12. Jedda, Saudi Arabia. King Abdulaziz (1876-1953) unified the kingdom of Saudi Arabia and was its first monarch.

13. Manila. Benigno "Ninoy" Aquino, Jr. (1932-1983), was a Philippine senator and opponent of President Ferdinand Marcos. He was assassinated at the airport that now bears his name.

14. Casablanca. Mohammed V was the sultan of Morocco from 1927 to 1953. He lived in exile from 1953 to 1955 and was the country's king from 1957 until his death in 1961.

15. Dar es Salaam. Julius Kambarage Nyerere (1922-1999) was Tanzania's first president (1964-1985).

16. Tirana, Albania. Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu (1910-1997), later known as Mother Teresa, was born in Albania. She founded the Missionaries of Charity and spent more than 40 years ministering to the sick and dying in Kolkata (Calcutta), India. Teresa won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1979 and was beatified by Pope John Paul II after her death.

17. Johannesburg. Oliver Reginald Tambo (1917-1993) was a leader of the South African anti-apartheid movement and a president of the African National Congress.

18. Guadalajara. Don Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla (1753-1811) was a Creole priest (Mexican born of Spanish parents); he is considered the father of Mexican independence from Spain.

19. Algiers. Houari Boumedienne was the nom de guerre of Mohamed Boukharouba (1932-1978), who fought in the war for Algerian independence from France and was Algeria's president from 1965 to 1978. He created his assumed name from the names of the patron saints of Oran (Sidi el Houari) and Tlemcen (Sidi Boumedienne).

20. Havana. José Julián Martí Pérez (1853-1895) was a leader of the Cuban struggle for independence from Spain. He was also a celebrated poet and writer.

21. Orange County, California. A nine-foot bronze statue of the Duke says "Hello, pilgrim" to everyone who enters the terminal. (See photo, above.)

22. Santiago, Chile. Merino Benítez (1888-1970) created the Chilean Air Force and founded LAN, Chile's national airline.

23. Kolkata (Calcutta). The airport's previous name was Dum Dum Airport; it was changed to honor the Bengali patriot Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose (1897-1945[?]).

24. Caracas, Venezuela. Simón José Antonio de la Santísima Trinidad Bolívar Palacios y Blanco, known as El Libertador, was born in Caracas in 1783 and died in Santa Maria, Colombia, in 1833. Together with José de San Martin, he led several independence movements in South America; the country of Bolivia is named after him.

25. Baltimore/Washington. This airport was renamed in 2005 to honor the late Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall (1908-1993), a native of Baltimore.

Congratulations to Jessica of Beauty Marks, Kim of Knits with a Silent K, and Charles for their correct answers, and to Going Like Sixty for knowing the SUX story.

Extra-credit answer: Friedman Memorial Airport is in Hailey, Idaho, the gateway to Sun Valley. It's named for a pioneer Jewish merchant and his family. Other than Ben Gurion Airport in Israel, I doubt there's another airport in the world that's named for a Jew.

And here's a bonus answer to a question I didn't pose: In 2002 Speke Airport became Liverpool John Lennon Airport, in honor of that city's most famous native son. John Russell noted my lapse--more of an intentional omission, really--in a comment.

John Lennon is far from the only airport name I left out of my quiz. There's Louis Armstrong Airport in New Orleans; "Pappy" Boyington Field (for the World War II flying ace) in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho; Antonio Carlos Jobim Airport (for the musician) in Rio. In Mexico and many Central and South American countries, just about every airport is named for someone (usually a military hero). European airports, on the other hand, are almost always named only for their cities. The exception is Greece, where many airports are named after gods and historical figures from antiquity: Aphrodite, Aristotle, Hippocrates. Alexander the Great--even, bizarrely, Ikaros (a k a Icarus).

The Wikipedians have assembled a comprehensive list of airline destinations, to which I am indebted. If you're into airport codes like SUX and LAX, you can order stickers here.

Airport Name Game

I'm flying from Lionel Wilson to Bob Hope. Which airport am I leaving and where am I headed?

If you guessed Oakland and Burbank, you're probably a frequent Southwest Airlines flyer. Or maybe you're just someone who, like me, has an unhealthy obsession with airport eponyms: names that honor people.

Some airport eponyms have achieved official status: JFK, LaGuardia, DeGaulle. But in many cities in the U.S. and elsewhere, airports generally known by their city names also get secondary names that recognize local heroes or public servants. Lionel Wilson, in case you were wondering, was Oakland's first African-American mayor; he served from 1977 to 1990. And Bob Hope was Bob Hope.

So here's a quiz for you. Name the city and country in which an airport is named for each of these people. To keep it fair, I've excluded obscure general-aviation airports and bush-plane destinations. Most of the answers are large or well-known cities--in their respective regions, anyway. Most of the airports are international hubs.

Answers tomorrow. No fair Googling.

Name the Airport

1.  Bud Day

2.  Presidente Juscelino Kubitschek

3.  Lester Pearson

4.  Marco Polo

5.  Frederic Chopin

6.  Kingsford Smith

7.  Antonio B. Won Pat

8.  Wiley Post–Will Rogers (two names, one airport)

9.  Lech Walesa

10.  Queen Beatrix

11.  Rafic Hariri

12.  King Abdulaziz

13.  Ninoy Aquino

14.  Mohammed V

15.  Mwalimu J. K. Nyerere

16.  Mother Teresa

17.  Oliver Tambo

18.  Don Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla

19.  Houari Boumedienne

20.  José Martí 

21.  John Wayne

22.  Comodoro Arturo Merino Benítez

23.  Nataji Subhash Chandra Bose

24.  Simón Bolívar

25.  Thurgood Marshall

For trivia buffs (and Friedmans) only: Where is Friedman Memorial Airport? 

Word of the Week: Monroney Sticker

Monroney sticker: The label on a new car that discloses base price, standard equipment, freight charges, and warranty information. The sticker, sometimes called a Monroney label, is named for Almer Stillwell "Mike" Monroney, the U.S. senator (D-Oklahoma) who sponsored the Automobile Information Disclosure Act of 1958. Car dealers who fail to display the sticker must pay a fine of $1,000 per vehicle.

"The Monroney label is a printed DNA of your vehicle," writes Jim Mateja on Kicking Tires, a blog for car buyers. He recommends carefully removing it and storing it in a safe place--not the glove compartment.

Thanks to Car Talk guys Tom and Ray Magliozzi, without whom I wouldn't have known about Monroney (and many other things).

Sporting Eponyms

An eponym is the conversion of a personal name into an object, event, process or period of time: French aerialist Jules Léotard gave his name to stretchy dance gear; the braille system of reading is named for Louis Braille. Sadism and masochism are named, respectively, for the Marquis de Sade and the novelist Leopold von Sacher-Masoch.

The sciences are filled with eponyms (hertz, joule, ampere, roentgen, watt). Sport is less well represented, but not entirely absent. Here, with acknowledgements to my fraternal research assistant Michael, are some colorful namesakes from the world of athletics:

Mendoza Line: Baseball lingo for a .200 batting average, "above which all hitters are at pains to stay," writes Alexander Wolff in the July 2 issue of Sports Illustrated. Named for Mario Mendoza, former infielder, coach, and manager for various U.S. and Mexican major- and minor-league teams.(Wolff's article begins: "The Mendoza line rings. It's Mario Mendoza's wife, Irma Beatriz...") Mendoza actually had a career average of .215. The term was allegedly coined by former Kansas City Royal George Brett, who, after a bad day, said, ""I knew I was off to a bad start when I saw my average listed below the Mendoza line." (There's a band called The Mendoza Line in New York. None of its members is named Mendoza.)

Tommy John surgery: Shorthand for an ulnar collateral ligament reconstruction. Named for lefthanded major-league pitcher Tommy John, who in 1974 was the first person to undergo the surgery, which involved removing a forearm tendon to replace an elbow ligament. He was given a 1 percent chance of resuming his career, but after more than a year of rehab went on to pitch successfully until his retirement in 1989. Read more in Gene Menez's article, also in the July 2 SI.

Gretzky's office: The area behind the hockey goal. Named for National Hockey League star Wayne ("The Great One") Gretzky, who led the Edmonton Oilers to four Stanley Cup championships.

Badminton: The racquet sport was named not for a person but for the stately home of the Duke of Beaufort, where the game was frequently played in the late nineteenth century. (In India, where the game originated, it is called Poona, after the city of the same name.)

Lutz, Axel, and Salchow: Figure-skating jumps named for the skaters who created them: Axel Paulsen (1855-1938), Alois Lutz (1898-1918), and Ulrich Salchow (1877-1949).

Word of the Week: Friedman Unit

Friedman Unit: A neologism coined last year by Atrios (the nom de blog of Duncan Bowen Black). A Friedman Unit, or FU, equals six months. It's named for New York Times columnist Tom Friedman (no relation to your correspondent), who since 2003 has repeatedly written that U.S. victory or defeat in Iraq will be determined "in the next six months."

Huffington Post contributor Robert Naiman reported on April 18 that the last "Friedman" in Iraq was the worst so far for the United States:

From October 2006 through last month, 532 American soldiers were killed, the most during any six-month period of the war. March also marked the first time that the U.S. military suffered four straight months of 80 or more fatalities. April, with 58 service members killed through Monday, is on pace to be one of the deadliest months of the conflict for American forces.

I think I can safely speak for most Friedmans when I say that we'd have preferred a different route into the Eponym Hall of Fame.

About the photo: Yes, there really is a Friedman Memorial Airport in--of all places--Hailey, Idaho, the gateway to Sun Valley. The airport honors a 19th-century Blaine County merchant and his family--again, no relation. (I'm not related to Milton or Kinky, either.)

New Name Beat: Martin + Osa

I'm going back to my retail/fashion roots with this edition of New Name Beat, which examines a new "store concept" (no one simply opens a shop nowadays) with an enigmatic name.

What It Is: Martin + Osa sells casual clothing in nice fabrics (cashmere, cotton-cashmere blend, tissueweight merino wool) to men and women age 25-40 who've graduated from the torn jeans and faded T-shirts of their college years but don't want to give up comfortable, familiar styles. The first store opened last September in Tysons Corner, a mall near Washington, DC; today there are five stores nationwide, including the one I visited in San Francisco's new Westfield Shopping Center on Market Street. Prices are generally comparable to Banana Republic, although the selection is much smaller--"more tightly edited," as they say in retail.

Where It Comes From: The parent company of Martin + Osa is American Eagle Outfitters, an 850-store chain that sells casual clothing to 15- to 25-year-olds when they aren't shopping at Abercrombie & Fitch or Old Navy. Most shoppers no longer remember American Eagle's history: the company was founded in 1904 as an outdoor-gear company similar to Eddie Bauer or Pendleton. Hence the "outfitters." And hence a slim but significant link to Martin + Osa. Read on.

What They're Saying: "The number of Americans ages 25 to 34 is expected to rise by 5.2 percent by 2010, according to the Census Bureau," the New York Times reported last September in an article about Martin + Osa. "By contrast, those ages 12 to 18 are to fall by 3.3 percent. 'Retailers are salivating over that 30-year-old demographic,' said John D. Morris, an analyst at Wachovia Securities." About the store itself, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported, "Wood-walled dressing rooms offer room for strollers while the strategic use of mirrors and wall murals is meant to give the feel of trying on clothes in the great outdoors. In the Refresh zone near the dressing rooms, staff offers bottled water, apples and the use of two restrooms. [Ed. note: No apples when I shopped in S.F. I'm miffed.] Stone walls throughout the store intersperse with warm wood beams shaped rather like a pergola, while lighting subtly shifts and ebbs to mimic the effect of clouds passing overhead." But the most distinctive aspect of the store design is the façade, which is all light-colored wood and blue-tinted glass, with nary a merchandise display to be seen. From the outside, it looks more like a trendy club than a store.

What It Means: Martin + Osa takes its name from two real people, a married couple from Kansas named Martin and Osa Johnson who between 1917 and 1936 traveled and photographed in Africa, the South Pacific, and Borneo. According to M + O company president Ken Pilot, "Our store environment and merchandise assortments will embody Martin and Osa's classically American spirit of sport, outdoor and adventure for today's generation in constant motion." There are links between the Martin + Osa web site and the Martin + Osa Johnson Safari Museum in Chanute ("ranked the #1 museum in Kansas"); I haven't found a direct statement about financial ties, but I'm guessing that AE is contributing something to the (nonprofit) museum.

What I Like: Using linked male and female names as your brand says you sell both men's and women's clothing--although I wonder how many North Americans will recognize "Osa" as any kind of name at all. (It's the Anglicized spelling of a common Scandinavian name.) On the other hand, the unfamiliarity of "Osa" may work in this brand's favor, signaling the adventure and exoticism that the stores and the web site work hard to conjure. (Check out the eclectic reading and listening lists: from the home page, select "Goodstuff [sic].")

Then there's that plus sign, fast becoming the punctuation symbol of choice (replacing "@") to signify hip/cool/modern. A plus sign rejects the ampersand's baroque curlicues in favor of minimalist straight lines and right angles; it turns a partnership into a mathematical equation. Global and borderless, the plus sign--which also suggests an international dialing code--is turning up wherever the market is youthful and plugged in: Adam + Eve clothing for men and women, Tevrow + Chase women's clothing, M + J Savitt jewelry, Crispin Porter + Bogusky ad agency (creators of those Orville Redenbacher-as-zombie ads). Whereas the ampersand is a ligature of the Latin word "et," meaning and, the plus sign transcends Western culture and dead languages. It's positive yet neutral. (Like Switzerland. And what's on the Swiss flag? A plus-shaped cross.)

What bothers me: The first five or six times I heard or read about Martin + Osa I was sure it was an offshoot of Abercrombie & Fitch, not American Eagle. Why? Because the brand story is such a good fit with A&F--not today's slutty-preppy-slacker A&F but the historical company, which was established in 1892 and until the 1960s was known as an elite safari outfitter, the kind of store Martin and Osa Johnson might actually have visited before one of their excursions. (For its part, A&F is also targeting the 25-and-up market with Ruehl No. 925, an even more enigmatic and contrived name than Martin + Osa.) Okay, I'm a retail geek; most customers won't know or care who's behind the concept. I do think, however, that Martin + Osa is going to have to work hard to get customers to go beyond the stores' mysterious exteriors. (So far, you can't buy the merchandise online.) A strange name can help with positioning and generating buzz, but it doesn't always translate into traffic. On the other other hand (consultants have three hands, you know), who today remembers the origins of "Banana Republic?" (The original store sold surplus goods bought from failed dictatorships in tropical zones, disparagingly known as "banana republics.") And who knows what "Old Navy" means? (I for one don't have a clue.)

The decision: I'm all for great name stories, but with Martin + Osa the story isn't enough. Parent company AE will have to make a determined branding and marketing effort to overcome the name's liabilities and get customers to progress beyond those affectless store exteriors. On an ascending scale from 1 to 5, I'll give "Martin + Osa" a 3.7.

But: I'm fine with the plus sign in the name, but the full stops in Martin + Osa's trademarked tagline--"Everyday. Life. Adventures."--set my teeth on edge. Used this way, periods are the new italics; they're inserted after single words to create an annoying staccato rhythm and self-conscious emphasis where none would normally be perceived. (See also Pioneer's "Sound. Vision. Soul." and Sony's "Like. No. Other."--and many others.) Enough. Already.