Fritinancy

The Rules

"They had a name jar and there were rules for those. They didn't want any names ending with a Y, because that was weak. And certainly no nicknames -- the name you got is the name you got."

-- Canadian soprano Measha Brueggergosman explaining her first name and those of her siblings, Teah and Neville, to classical music critic Joshua Kosman of the San Francisco Chronicle. She explains her unusual last name, and offers pronunication tips, on her web site.

These Foolish Things

(Apologies to all who linked to this post previously and found ... nothing. Has April Fools' Day arrived early this year?)

Mark your calendars for Sunday, April 1--April Fools' Day--when the First Church of the Last Laugh will sponsor the St. Stupid's Day parade, a San Francisco tradition since 1978.

The parade commences at noon ("rain or shine, war or peace") at the Transamerica Building and proceeds up Columbus Ave. through North Beach.

You are asking yourself: What is this First Church of the Last Laugh? Well, as with all world religions the answers are shrouded in mystery and arcana, but here's a start: It calls itself "the world's first snack religion" and "the one pretty true church." Its supreme pontiff is Bishop Joey. And it has just one holy day a year: St. Stupid's Day.

Learn much, much more about the parade and the FCLL on the web site. Do note that to enter the site you must first pass a test. In the spirit of St. Stupid and of ecumenism, why not choose the "No" option? Just kidding!

The St. Stupid's Day Parade: Sillier than Pasadena's Doo-Dah Parade. Less culturally significant than Philadelphia's Mummers parade. It's fun, it's free, it's snackreligious. Say hallelujah!

Warren Buffett, Copywriter

I used to make nice money writing annual reports, but I can't honestly recommend any of my output as bedside reading. As a copywriter I was paid to follow orders, and the orders were: "Safe, bland, reassuring." There were lawyers and regulators. I did as I was told, and the checks never bounced.

Warren Buffett--CEO of Berkshire Hathaway, the huge insurance company based in Omaha--has no such problems. He gives the orders and he writes his own annual reports, which is why they're unlike any other annual reports you'll ever read. (And, similarly, why BerkshireHathaway.com looks, shall we say, utterly unlike any other Fortune 500 company's web site.)

Now, most CEOs are best advised to stick to the spreadsheets and let pros handle the prose. But Warren Buffett, in addition to being a smart guy, the second-richest man in the world, and a renowned philanthropist, is a hell of a writer. Take a look at the recently published 2006 annual report and you'll see what I mean.

You may at first be surprised by what's missing. Buffett doesn't talk about leveraging our core competencies. He never touts his company's proactive solutions. He's not on speaking terms with impactful or customer-centric.

Here, instead, is what Buffett does so brilliantly:

• He tells stories. Reading a Berkshire annual report is like sitting across a booth in a diner with a great conversationalist possessed of both intelligence and insatiable curiosity. Here's how Buffett introduces a discussion of reinsurance, usually a guaranteed snooze: "Our tale begins around 1688, when Edward Lloyd opened a small coffee house in London. Though no Starbucks, his shop was destined to achieve worldwide fame because of the commercial activities of its clientele--shipowners, merchants and venturesome British capitalists. As these parties sipped Edward's brew, they began to write contracts transferring the risk of a disaster at sea from the owners of ships and their cargo to the capitalists, who wagered that a given voyage would be completed without incident."
• He uses vivid language. Notice, in the passage I just quoted, "Though no Starbucks..." which brings us 21st-century readers into the story. Notice, too, "sipped" instead of the duller "drank" and "brew" instead of "coffee." And notice how none of those usages feels forced. Elsewhere, on the important subject of executive compensation, Buffett writes: "If a CEO bats .300, he gets paid for being a .300 hitter, even if circumstances outside of his control cause Berkshire to perform poorly." That's a clear-as-day metaphor, used convincingly by someone to happens to be a fervent baseball fan.
• He talks about people. It's one thing to say, as almost everyone does, that business is about people. It's another thing entirely to portray those people fully fleshed and full of foibles. Here's an example: "Jack [Ringwalt] was a long-time friend of mine and an excellent, but somewhat eccentric, businessman. For about ten minutes every year he would get the urge to sell his company. But those moods--perhaps brought on by a tiff with regulators or an unfavorable jury verdict--quickly vanished." How can you not keep reading?
• He's generous with humor. Every Berkshire annual brims with jokes (including some groaners), drollery, and wit. "As a cynic has said, 'A rolling loan gathers no loss,'" Buffett writes. He even brings in humor where you'd least expect it, as in this paragraph about one of Berkshire's holdings: "After you've flown NetJets, returning to commercial flights is like going back to holding hands."
• He gets to the point. "Be fearful when others are greedy and greedy when others are fearful," Buffett writes. That's an entire business philosophy in twelve words. Few "mission statements," no matter how labored over, communicate as much essential information.
• His enthusiasm shows. After more than fifty years in business, Buffett still loves going to work every day. He's mindful of succession issues--and has been candid about his plans--but he also reassures his shareholders: "At 76, I feel terrific, and, according to all measurable indicators, am in excellent health. It's amazing what Cherry Cokes and hamburgers will do for a fellow."

A disclosure: I became a Berkshire annual-report reader some years back when I bought a handful of Berkshire shares. ('B" shares, I hasten to add; the "A" shares, which famously have never split, are currently trading at $108,290.) I look forward each March to the report's arrival and I thoroughly enjoy reading every word and chart. So it was with some dismay that, a few years ago, I discovered an error in the text: Buffett had written "vocal chords" instead of "vocal cords"--a common mistake, but lamentable all the same. As a shareholder of record I felt compelled to go straight to the top with my grievance, and so I did. Exactly one week later came the reply on corporate letterhead:

Dear Nancy:

I enjoyed your letter. What we tell people is that we put one mistake in each annual report to encourage annual reading. But if you believe that ...

Sincerely,

Warren E. Buffett

Four Years

Q: Why did President Bush call it "Operation Iraqi Freedom"?

A: Because "March Madness" was taken.

(From Leah Garchik's daily column in the San Francisco Chronicle.)

Tips for Naming

The Name Inspector shares ten tips for naming a company, product, or service. It's excellent advice that should be committed to memory by anyone embarking on this adventure. In particular:

Often what makes a name good is the fact that it gives people a mental image that helps them understand how something works or what benefits it provides. Ideas are more interesting and easier to remember when they’re associated with sensory, especially visual, experience. That means when you’re coming up with name ideas, sometimes it’s best to start with a visual image and then think of the language that goes with it.

And:

Maybe it’s shocking for The Name Inspector to say this, but the etymologies of words or word parts that you use in your name don’t matter. What do matter are the associations people make. Sometimes there’s an overlap between the two, though. For example, many people recognize that -lumin- relates to light, and it in fact comes from the Latin word for light. However, most people don’t make the association to light because of their knowledge of Latin or etymology. They make it because they know words like luminous and illuminate and recognize the word part. In general, etymological meaning connections only come through when they’re also part of the living language.

I'll have more to say about the second point in tomorrow's post.

From the Company Whose Name Means "Small" and "Flaccid"

How products get named at Microsoft. (Via Mike Pope.)

How packaging gets designed at Microsoft.

Word of the Week: Marzipan Layer

Marzipan layer: a group of talented managers and other senior staff just below the top level of directors or partners, akin to the sweet layer of marzipan just below the icing on a cake. Read more at Word Spy.

The word marzipan--a name for the confection made from ground almonds, sugar, and egg whites--has an unclear etymology. According to one theory it means "March bread"; its traditional English name is marchpane. However, the Italian version, marzapane, derives from the Middle Latin word for "small box." Like many other delicacies, marzipan the sweet may have originated in Persia and been introduced to Europe by the Turks.

Where Are They Now?

Do the names Cello, Viola, and Slipknot ring any bells?

How about Gopher, Lynx, and Amaya?

They're all nomenclature ghosts from the Internet's monochromatic Stone Age, and the vanished worlds they represent are lovingly preserved at DejaVu.org, dedicated to "the web as we remember it."

Visit the browser emulator to experience virtual history via Internet Explorer 2.0 (1996) or Netscape Navigator 1.0 (circa 1995). (A disclaimer warns, "Sorry, due to heavy load on the server, browsing is quite slow. On the positive side, it makes the experience even more authentic.") 

Or travel memory lane via a clever timeline ("In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was ascii encoded...").

DejaVu.org is the brainchild of Pär Lannerö of Metamatrix in Stockholm, who charmingly informs us that the Swedish equivalent of déjà vu ("already seen" in French) translates to "feel again you."

For more browser nostalgia, in a far geekier format, visit Evolt.org. It's a trove of defunct or moribund names, including 1X, Net-Tamer, AtomNet, Charlie, SurfMonkey, Minuet, Pythia, and the romantic and impoverished Bohemian Net Browser.

Very Cool

Because naming things and writing for a living aren't quite punishing enough, I also swim in San Francisco Bay, where the average water temperature year round is 54°F (12°C). My base of operations is the Dolphin Swimming and Boating Club, which celebrates its 130th anniversary this year and where, aside from the advent of electricity about a century ago (and--hallelujah--saunas some time after that) and the admission of women in 1977, little has changed since the days of celluloid collars and handlebar mustaches.

Between December 21 and March 21 every year, the club sponsors a friendly Polar Bear competition. The objective is to swim at least 40 miles in the bay; the prize (in addition to bragging rights) is a little white marble block. I've earned a stack of six of those blocks; my personal Polar Bear record was 52 miles, which I found supremely challenging. A few years ago, though, a gentleman named George Kebbe shattered the record by swimming 356 miles during Polar Bear season. That's about four miles a day, on days when the water was as cold as 48 degrees and the air about ten degrees colder. (Okay, it's not Coney Island, but it's cold.)

This year George's record was tied, which is news in itself. But the way in which it was tied was even more remarkable. Read Carl Nolte's article in the San Francisco Chronicle about 47-year-old Ralph Wenzel, who swam four hours every day to match the 356-mile mark, and who could have surpassed it but chose not to. Nolte writes:

With a chance to break the record and set a new mark, he stood up and walked out of the water. It was clear he could have gone back in the bay, taken another lap around the Aquatic Park lagoon and torn up the record book.

"I don't feel like going back in again,'' he said. Asked why he didn't break the record, he shrugged and walked away to take a sauna. "If you don't mind,'' he said, "I'm a bit cold.''

In times when records are made to be broken and winners are hailed as superheroes, Wenzel seems to be a throwback to some other age.

He did not explain what he did, but others were willing to speak for him. "It took class and he has class,'' said Noelle Maylander, who was one of his swimming partners.

"He is a very modest man,'' said Rick David, who also swam with him. "He does not like to draw attention.''

Kudos to the Chronicle for choosing veteran reporter Nolte, a very classy writer, to write this account of a very classy athlete.

By the way, Ralph Wenzel scheduled his swimming regime around his day job. A native of Dresden, Germany--he immigrated to the U.S. in 1990--he co-owns Schubert's Bakery in San Francisco, which is almost as old as the Dolphin Club and which turns out some of the most gorgeous and delicious cakes and pastries I've ever eaten. Stop by when you're in the neighborhood.

March Linkfest

Spring has sprung, the grass has riz, I wonder where the linkies is.

Blogossary (good name!), just over a year old, describes itself as "an online dictionary for bloggers, wannabe bloggers, or those who just want to know what a blog is." Helpful definitions include blegging: asking the denizens of the blogosphere for help; blogorrhea: a large number of blog entries or an entire blog comprised of substandard quality or overly verbose content; moblog: a journal updated primarily from a mobile device; and doppelblogger: someone who plagiarizes the content of another blogger for personal gain or recognition. I couldn't find one of my favorite terms, coined by Tate Linden at Thingnamer: Schrödinger's Blog, a blog that's simultaneously dead and alive.

This directory of computer idioms from Contemporary Home Computing was created "to popularize idioms and metaphors that come from the computer to the so called real life." Some nice ones: "The hand moves the mouse" (translation: you control your own destiny), "I gonna bang the bricks!" (Super Mario talk for "I'm going to withdraw some money from the ATM"), and "Read my blog!" (the equivalent of "Get lost!"). See also a partner site, Car Metaphors.

Sci-fi writer Jeff Prucher helpfully lists all the words he left out of Brave New Words: The Oxford Dictionary of Science Fiction. (Via The Lexicographer's Rules.)

Heidi Harley has posted her third annual Simpsons linguistic roundup, complete with derivational verbal morphology, nonce words, interlinguistic homonymy (aka shoecabbages), and count/mass coercion.

And speaking of The Simpsons, there's finally a real trailer for The Simpsons Movie (listed as Trailer 3). Coming to a theater near you July 27! (Via Sore Eyes.)

I thought I'd heard every light bulb joke in the universe, but then Mike Pope posted these light bulb jokes for editors and I, um, saw the light. Some of them are uproarious only to those (like me) who've worked a copy desk, but this one may have a wider audience: Q: How many editors does it take to screw in a lightbulb? A: I can't tell whether you mean "change a lightbulb" or "have sex in a lightbulb." Can we reword it to remove ambiguity?