Fritinancy

Word of the week: Meteotsunami

It’s always something here on the West Coast, isn’t it? If it isn’t wildfires—thankfully not a major problem last year—it’s flooding, if it isn’t flooding it’s earthquakes, and if it isn’t earthquakes it’s … a volcanic eruption? Not here, but close enough—5,300 miles away, off the coast of Tonga, one mile below the ocean surface. It was massive enough to trigger tsunami advisories throughout coastal California and to cause surges in places like Santa Cruz and Pacifica.

 

 

One of many permanent tsunami signs in San Francisco.

On the extremely micro level, that meant canceling my scheduled swim in San Francisco Bay. Not that I’m complaining: I may be crazy to swim in 51°F water, but at least I’m not the sort of idiot who thinks, “Oooh, a tsunami! Surf’s up!”

Stuck on high ground, I did some research into the language of tsunamis, and soon discovered the word of the week, meteotsunami, which was new to me. More about this word a little later. First, though, about tsunami. The word is, of course, borrowed from Japanese; its deceptively mild literal meaning is “harbor waves.” I learned from the OED that the transliterated word first appeared in an English-language text in 1897, in a collection of stories by Lafcadio Hearn titled Gleanings in Buddha-Fields: “‘Tsunami!’ shrieked the people; and then all shrieks and all sounds and all power to hear sounds were annihilated by a nameless shock … as the colossal swell smote the shore with a weight that sent a shudder through the hills.”

How implicit egotism affects naming

When it comes to choosing company and product names, we’re all a little egotistical—we prefer the sound and spelling of our personal names, and gravitate toward company and product names that mirror our own. Read about the implicit egotism effect in my latest story for Medium: “You, Yourself, and Your Brand Name.”

Word of the week: Blue lie

At its annual meeting last week, the American Dialect Society selected insurrection as its word of the year for 2021. I’d originally picked insurrection myself, but switched to Big Lie, which, I argued, was the insurrection’s impetus and underpinning. Big Lie did make the ADS’s shortlist, though. And this week I’m looking at another shade of mendacity—one that was new to me until very recently: blue lie.

I came across blue lie in a New Yorker article by Evan Osnos about a hugely popular and scarily influential right-wing radio host: “Dan Bongino and the Big Business of Returning Trump to Power,” published in the magazine’s January 3 & 10 issue. Here’s the relevant passage:

Bongino, like other prominent supporters, seems to put increasing stock in what researchers refer to as “blue lies,” the kinds of claims that pull believers together and drive skeptics away. (“There were known issues with the election,” he said in December, adding, “We get that.”)

I’d known about “white lies,” of course—untruths told to help someone else, even at a cost to ourselves. There are also, according to some people fond of color categories, “black lies” (told out of selfishness), “gray lies” (told partly to help others, partly to help ourselves) and “red lies” (told out of spite or vengeance). But blue lies?

Here’s the Wikipedia definition*: “a form of lying that is told purportedly to benefit a collective or ‘in the name of the collective good’. The origin of the term ‘blue lie’ is possibly from cases where police officers made false statements to protect the police force or to ensure the success of a legal case against an accused.” Blue, the color of police uniforms, is a stand-in—a metonym—for “police.”

 

Thin Blue Lie: The Failure of High-Tech Policing, by Matt Stroud (2019). The title puns on “thin blue line,” the concept that the police keep society from descending into violent chaos. Popularized by the Los Angeles Police Department in the 1950s, “thin blue line” was itself a variation on “The Thin Red Line,” a British regiment during the Crimean War. The Thin Blue Line is the title of a 1988 documentary by Errol Morris about the murder of a Texas police officer. The thin blue line flag has been displayed as a show of support for law enforcement “but also has come to signal opposition to the racial-justice movement.” 

Book review: "Brand Naming," by Rob Meyerson

From time to time I’ve been asked—often by a college student or a copywriter—to recommend resources for learning the craft of name development. I’ve sighed and shook my head: It’s all about on-the-job training, I’d say. That’s how I learned to do what I do. There were no books, no courses.

I’m happy to report that I now have a different answer. Brand Naming, a new book from naming expert and podcast host Rob Meyerson, is a 162-page guide to just about everything a namer needs to know to get started and build a practice. (Disclaimer: I received a complimentary review copy of Brand Naming, and I’m cited a few times within its pages.)

The cover of Brand Naming is your first lesson: It includes some of the more than 100 alternate titles Meyerson developed—Namecraft, Naming Names, Verbal Identity, and more—before opting for the clear, straightforward, easily searchable choice.

 

Word of the week: Socialite

How to succinctly describe Ghislaine Noelle Marion Maxwell, the French-born, UK–reared former associate of financier Jeffrey Epstein (1953–2019) who was convicted last week in federal court on five charges of sex trafficking and sex abuse?

Wikipedia tells us she’s a “former socialite.”

The French TV network France24 calls her a “defrocked socialite,” which evokes both priesthood and striptease. The Mirror (UK) labels her a “shamed socialite” who “faces decades behind bars,” although the accounts of Maxwell’s courtroom behavior—she declined to testify on her own behalf—suggest impassiveness or nonchalance rather than shame. San Angelo LIVE! [sic] went with “disturbed socialite.” Other media outlets were more neutral: “UK socialite,” “British socialite.” Naomi Fry, in her post-conviction analysis for the New Yorker, “The Relentless Ego of Ghislaine Maxwell,” used “socialite” three times. (She also used “sangfroid,” “hauteur,” and “Epstein’s right-hand woman.”)

So socialite it is, by consensus, and not “real estate saleswoman” or “property manager” (both of which Maxwell once was, technically speaking) or any of the other words that might be attached to her: “a fixture of society’s upper echelons,” “paramour,” “confidante,” “accomplice,” “madam” (all from the France24 story linked above).

Here is another word—old-fashioned but apt--that might suit.

“The Procuress” (1548) by Lucas Cranach the Elder. Female pimps were a popular theme in Renaissance art.