Fritinancy

June Linkfest

 The big news this month for us word folk has been the launch of The Economist’s language blog, “Johnson.” (That’s Johnson as in Samuel, the 18th-century lexicographer*, so stop the snickering, you dirty-minded American.) I immediately added Johnson to my RSS feed and have not been disappointed. A few highlights: The meaning of President Obama’s use of “ass” (skip the comments if you prefer to hold your fellow humans in high regard); words you can’t use in the New York Times (à propos the previous item, tuchus is on that list); and the wild pigs and cucumber troops of German politics.

By the way, you can follow Dr. Samuel Johnson—but not The Economist’s Johnson— on Twitter.

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Another excellent language blog, new to me: About English Idioms. Ever wonder where we get the expressions “the cat’s pajamas,” “takes the cake,” and “Potemkin Village”? Find answers here.

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I recently heard behavioral economist Dan Ariely speak about the research behind his books Predictably Irrational and The Upside of Irrationality, so I was primed to discover You Are Not So Smart, “a blog devoted to self-delusion and irrational thinking.” Do you think it takes years of study and experience to appreciate wine? That makeup “is just a cultural norm”? That “music with mass appeal rises to the top of the charts”? You are not so smart.

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The ancient Greeks would have understood Homer Simpson when he said, “Fame was like a drug, but what was even more like a drug were the drugs.” That’s because Homer was employing the rhetorical device of metanoia, the self-correcting figure of speech. Figure of Speech, the blog that “rips the innards out of things people say and reveals the rhetorical tricks and pratfalls,” discloses the rhetoric behind a comprehensive list of Homerisms (and also Lisa-isms, Moe-isms, and Grandpa-isms).

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Finally, a couple of links for the beginning of hurricane season: A list of all the named hurricanes for 2010 through 2013 (via NameFlash) and a Wired article explaining the science and politics behind the naming of hurricanes (via Anthony Shore).

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Image of Samuel Johnson from Scholium.

Ciao, Amore

Remember the hardworking farm boy of the Rosetta Stone ads?

He disappeared from magazines about six months ago. But his quixotic saga lives on. In January, Rosetta Stone asked fans to continue the story of the farm boy and the model. By Jan. 29, when the contest ended, there were 286 stories on the Rosetta Stone site, most of them with happy endings.

But wait, there’s more! In December 2008, Minnesota Public Radio’s Jeff Horwich wrote a song about the farm boy/supermodel romance that he performed at a company cabaret. Nice rhyming of “impress her” and “undress her,” Jeff!

And of course there was Ian Frazier’s hilarious parody in the New Yorker:

 

 

Are you aware that stalking a supermodel without her consent is a violation of Italian law?

 

Lei è consapevole che infastidire una top model senza il suo consenso è una violazione della legge italiana?

 

This pocket dictionary of Italian prison slang may be useful to you.

 

Questo dizionario tascabile di gergo carcerario italiano le potrebbe essere utile.

The hardworking farm boy even casts a shadow over a rival language-software company, Instant Immersion, which in recent weeks has been running this homage (oh, all right: low-rent knockoff) in The New York Times:

Yellow background: check. “One chance”: check. Hand-scrawled underscore: check.

Also: Apparently women do not ever buy foreign-language CDs. Nope, it’s totally a heterosexual guy thing. That’s been your experience, right?

Word of the Week: Vuvuzela

 Vuvuzela: A cheap plastic trumpet responsible for the amateur soundtrack of the 2010 Fifa World Cup, currently under way in South Africa. The vuvuzela makes “a high-pitched blasting sound, much like a big air horn on trucks,” according to Boogieblast, a South African manufacturer of vuvuzelas.

The origins of the vuvuzela and the etymology of the word are both uncertain. According to SouthAfrica.info, a tourism site, at least one person—Cape Town music educator Pedro Espi-Sanchis—attests to having been introduced to the vuvuzela about 30 years ago. The instrument became popular at soccer matches in the late 1990s. On May 15, 2004, the day it was announced that South Africa would host the 2010 World Cup, some 20,000 vuvuzelas were sold by street vendors; about 650,000 vuvuzelas have been sold in all between May 2004 and the beginning of the games.

SouthAfrica.info says the vuvuzela is a descendant of the kudu horn (a kudu is an African antelope) blown to summon villagers to meetings. Boogieblast tells a different story:

The vuvuzela was introduced to South Africa as a toy for kids to blow, and hardly got off the ground. Selling the vuvuzela proved almost impossible, until the full potential was realized by the local soccer supporters.

The first prototype was from America [!] and changed somewhat for more comfortable blowing and effectiveness. We have researched the history of the Vuvuzela, and follows a trail back to a women's Chinese basketball team, AMAZING...

The word vuvuzela may be onomatopoetic, from “making a vuvu sound.” On the other hand, here’s SouthAfrica.info on the etymology:

Some say it comes from the isiZulu for - wait for it - “making noise”. Others say it's from township slang related to the word “shower”, because it “showers people with music” - or, more prosaically, looks a little like a shower head.

And here’s Boogieblast:

There are many claims to what the word really means, but more generally it means to pump up ones [sic] performance in a truly South African manner.

That “truly South African manner” is not universally popular among soccer spectators. The Wikipedia entry for vuvuzela includes this passage, amply documented in footnotes:

They have been associated with permanent noise-induced hearing loss, cited as a possible safety risk when spectators cannot hear evacuation announcements, and potentially spread colds and flu viruses on a greater scale than coughing or shouting. Commentators have described the sound as “annoying” and compared it with “a stampede of noisy elephants,” “a deafening swarm of locusts,” “a goat on the way to slaughter” and “a giant hive full of very angry bees.”

And the UK Times reported yesterday:

The racket is driving players, broadcasters and visiting supporters to distraction — so much so that the South Africa World Cup Organising Committee has warned that the trumpets might have to be banned. Fifa, football’s international governing body, issued an edict two weeks ago that the vuvuzelas must not be played during national anthems or stadium announcements.

But Danny Jordaan, chief executive of the organising committee — and the most powerful man in South African football — went farther yesterday, as he wearily admitted that he had had enough of the infernal noise that makes the stadiums resonate like gigantic beehives.

As Boogieblast puts it: “You only hate them if you don’t have one.”

In case you haven’t been following the World Cup, here’s an introduction to the vuvuzela:

Video from Associated Press. Still photo from SouthAfrica.info.

Listing

For your weekend enjoyment:

The Great Noun List. Exactly what it says: A whole lotta nouns, from aardvark to zoology. I just know this will come in handy sometime. (Via Anthony Shore.)

The International Roller Girls’ Master Roster. Hundreds of wonderfully wacky and wicked names of roller-derby women. Some of my favorites: Ovary Reaction, Val Catraz, Angy O’Plasty, Absinthe Minded, Ann R. Kissed, Tess Tickles, Vi Agravate, and A Few Screws Lucy. (Via Tara Hunt.)

The Stoakes-Whibley Natural Index of Supernatural Collective Nouns, “for holiday or every day.” A gossip of mermaids, a percussion of goblins, a snarl of minotaurs . . . (Via Michele Hush.)

Collective Nouns That Might Be. A flush of plumbers, a scoop of journalists, a grid of electricians, etc. Scroll up the page for lists of conventional collective nouns.

Positive Words. Compiled about a decade ago by one Myron S. Hoyt, who wrote: “My ultimate goal is to select, from the overall universe of positive English words, a short list of the best positive words (certainly a somewhat subjective task) that one can read and enjoy whenever you wish.” Organized into somewhat subjective (but wonderful) categories, including “A Short List Of Some Positive Verbs Which May Be Applied To An Ideal Environment” and “Some Wonderful Positive Verbs and Helping Verbs.” (Via Anthony, again.)

G.M. Backs Up on “Chevy” Memo

The news made Page 1 of today’s New York Times. “Chevy,” the decades-old nickname for General Motors’ Chevrolet, was to be banished from the lexicon. According to a memo sent to Chevrolet employees at G.M.’s Detroit headquarters, it was all about brand consistency:

“We’d ask that whether you’re talking to a dealer, reviewing dealer advertising, or speaking with friends and family, that you communicate our brand as Chevrolet moving forward,” said the memo, which was signed by Alan Batey, vice president for Chevrolet sales and service, and Jim Campbell, the G.M. division’s vice president for marketing.

“When you look at the most recognized brands throughout the world, such as Coke or Apple  for instance, one of the things they all focus on is the consistency of their branding,” the memo said. “Why is this consistency so important? The more consistent a brand becomes, the more prominent and recognizable it is with the consumer.”

Brand consistency, you say? “Coke” is a shortening of “Coca-Cola.” Apple is known more by its product names than by its corporate name. Pizza Hut is experimenting with “Hut,” the Sci-Fi Channel mutated to Syfy, Radio Shack wants to be known as Shack.

Seems like a peculiar time for G.M. to stand on formality.

Moreover, General Motors owns many trademarks for “Chevy,” in categories including “pressure-sensitive graphics” and “bits and bit drivers for power drills.” It does not, however, own any part of Chevys Fresh Mex, a restaurant chain founded in Alameda, California, in 1986.

In any event, it all turned out to be a big Oh, Never Mind Then. By mid-day Thursday, G.M.—possibly responding to hundreds of emotional comments on auto blogs (“Corporate idiocy is alive and well!”)—had shifted into reverse, saying the memo had been “poorly worded” and affirming that “we love Chevy.”

And just in time, too. I can’t imagine how much it would have cost to rewrite the Chevy Volt song.

From the Wired Autopia blog.

Wicked

For most of the English-speaking world, wicked is an adjective that means evil. In the Boston area, however, wicked has long been used as an adverbial intensifier meaning very, e.g., wicked pissah. (The Bay Area equivalent, of much more recent vintage, is hella.)

But recently I saw two ads that made me realize wicked (adv.) had broken free of its regional associations. 

No Sale

I’d never heard of the translation company that sent me this email, but now that I’ve read an example of its communication style, I’m unlikely to send it any work. Here’s what “Melissa” wrote (I’ve removed identifying names):

As a leading provider of multilingual localization services and solutions, we at ____ strive to further connect with people around the globe, from localization and linguistic enthusiasts to those merely curious about the generalities of this field of work.  With the onset of a blog in development, we are reaching out to you today to open up lines for dialogue in an effort to encourage communication, share ideas, and extend networks.

To briefly introduce ____ to you through a current project, for those interested, the chance to participate in the industry's first collaborative and customizable terminology management system, ____, could possible result in your very own iPad!

For further instructions, please visit ____.

In the name of good old-fashioned advertising, we would also appreciate any mention of ____ in your blog entries.  Likewise, we would be more than willing to return the favor.  Our blog is very much a work-in-progress at the moment, but future endeavors will include "spotlights" with freelance translators, linguists, or ardent supporters of localization development and technology—this could be you! 

I receive plenty of awkwardly written emails from strangers and companies I’ve never heard of. This one stood out because it came from a translation company—one that is, according to its blog,  “a multinational, top-tier localization vendor with 13 offices around the world” that has succeeded by “sticking to our quality guns.” (Quality guns?) The company is based in Beijing, which may account for some of the awkward English (“linguistic enthusiasts”; “open up lines for dialogue”; “those merely curious about the generalities of this field of work”; “in the name of good old-fashioned advertising”*; “the onset of a blog in development”; the entire second paragraph). But it also has six North American offices and, presumably, at least one native English speaker and proofreader.

Based on the email, would you trust this company with your next translation project? I’m guessing your answer is no, non, nein, and nyet.

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* I think Melissa means “free PR,” not advertising.

Bloggiversary 4

Have I really been writing this blog for four years? Why, that’s an entire presidential term. In blog-years, it’s more like a geologic period, punctuated by occasional earthquakes in the form of TypePad upgrades. (I now compose posts in Windows LiveWriter and export the content to TypePad. More better. Thanks for the tip, AgateGal!) I’m somewhat stunned to report that the post you are reading is my 1,416th and that I’ve published 3,622 of your comments. (OK, so a few of the comments were my replies to your comments.)

A bit of history for those of you who have crashed the party just for the cake*:

In the beginning, the blog was called Away With Words. Here, from 2008, is my explanation of the name change.

Here’s the first blog post I wrote after the obligatory “is-this-thing-on” post. It’s about a nanoparticle that needed a name.**

I’ve written three Simpsons Brand-o-Rama posts—essentially lists of fictitious brands used on The Simpsons. It’s unlikely I’ll produce a fourth, so I recommend you take advantage of the close-out sale on existing inventory. Here’s the first Brand-o-Rama; links to the other two are at the bottom.

Most popular post of the last 12 months? That would likely be the November 2009 post about Droid’s “bare-knuckled bucket of does.” I followed up with two additional Droid posts, here and here.

Three posts account for the most traffic over all four years: How the Tiguan Got Its Name, The IKEA Naming System, and Put on a Suit and You’ll Look Cute, the last being my consideration of “bikini,” “skirtini,” and all the other aquatic -inis. (Most of the searchers who land on that last post aren’t interested in linguistics or women’s fashion; they’re looking for pictures of pubikinis. Sorry to disappoint, fellas.) For some reason, How to Name a Golf Course remains popular as well. Are that many golf courses actually being developed?

At the end of last year, I wrote about Words of the Year, Words of the Decade, Brands of the Year, and Brands of the Decade. And yes, the deadline for registering complaints has passed.

My favorite Word of the Week of the last year? So hard to choose, but I’m going to propose telepalmter. Just because.

For nostalgia buffs:

Bloggiversary 1 (2007).

Bloggiversary 2 (2008).

Bloggiversary 3 (2009).

Thanks to everyone who has read, linked, suggested, and commented. You are the wind beneath my wings. No, seriously.

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* Cake illustration from here.

** The nanoparticle ended up being named Au16-. Booooring.

 

Word of the Week: Louche

Louche: Of questionable taste or morality; decadent. Pronunciation: loosh. From French louche, “squinting” or “cross-eyed”; originally Latin lusca, “one-eyed.”

Louche is one of those words you can go years without seeing in print, and then—wham! It’s everywhere. As it has been in the last few weeks.

Underwear Week: Something for the Boys

With Father’s Day just over a week away, your thoughts may naturally be turning to mirdles. Or to Core Precision Undershirts. Or even to Bubble Butt Underwear with Frontal Enhancement (with Anti-Muffin Top elastic).

Welcome to the compressed, lifted, and superconfident world of mirdles: shapewear (or, let’s be honest, girdles) for men. Please open your man-words dictionary and make the necessary insertion.

Spanx, which has achieved near-generic status in the women’s-shapewear market, introduced its Man Spanx line in February, and the cotton “compression undershirts,” at $55 to $58 a pop, have been “a huge retail hit,” according to a recent New York Times report. “Men may not be talking about it, but they’re buying it,” Nickelson Wooster*, men’s fashion director at Neiman Marcus, told the Times.

Man Spanx may have the edge in name recognition, but it’s not alone, or even first, in the category. Sculptees, whose name strikes me as too diminutive for manly men, sells torso-constraining “sculptwear for men,” including the Pex, the Slim, and the T-Slim. Bubbles sells products for women as well as men (to understand why the company is called Bubbles, check out the women’s “butt bras”); the brand’s giddy nomenclature includes the Toolbox, the Jackpot, the Beach Bum, and—for the ladies—Bump-on-a-Rump. Bubbles also wins the Sassiest Slogan prize: “Take Your Gluteus to the Maximus!”

While a some men may buy mirdles to look svelter, others require a more technical sell. Writing last year in the Boston Globe (“Me and My Mirdle”), Christopher Muther, who may be responsible for coining “mirdle,” explained:

The trick with men . . . is that you can't call a girdle a girdle. You have to stress that it has other benefits, like it will help with posture (I know so many men who are concerned about their posture) or a sore back.

That’s where Equmen—an Australian brand whose name, I’m guessing, resembles “acumen,” emphasis on the men—swaggers in. I lifted the image at the top of the page from the Equmen website to show you just how very, very seriously this company takes its geekery. No sly double-entendres here: Instead, it’s all about the “Core Precision,” the “targeted ventilation,” and the “HELIX-MAPPING™ body response technology.” (In case you couldn’t tell at a glance, the drawing is a diagram of HELIX-MAPPING™.)

Here, for example, is a testimonial from a physiotherapist about the efficacy of Equmen garments:

The garments definitely help with postural support as they encourage optimal horizontal extension and retraction of the Scapulae, (upper central key points) giving a Scapulothoracic neutral posture. The value in this for function is to lessen kyphotic stress in the primary curvature which physiologically eases counter-stress in the secondary curvature of the segments. The wearer should therefore be aware of less effort and mechanical stress particularly with prolonged standing or sitting and may, indeed, notice improved ergonomics with upper limb activity.

I’m sure we’re all in favor of less kyphotic stress in the primary curvature.

In the end, though, it may take more than improved ergonomics to get men into the new tighty whities. As the Man Spanx ads put it, “Behind every man is a really great woman.” Or as a pushy determined customer named Christine wrote to Equmen:

I received my order the other day, and without any explanation handed the v-neck undershirt to my husband. After wrestling into it (he hates anything close-fitting) and moaning about how tight it was, his face suddenly change [sic] to amazement! He said he couldn't believe how great he felt, his sciatic pain stopped IMMEDIATELY, said he felt he could fill his lungs with more air and swears he's 2 inches (5cm) taller.

After a few hours he took the shirt off because he said it was making him feel exhausted having his back made so straight, but next morning it was back on again making him feel like Terminator LOL.

Atta girl, Christine! I’m LOLing with you. Your next assignment: Get him into mantyhose.

Previously on Underwear Week:

• Diapers cross the poop barrier.
• Why bra sizing makes no sense.
• Relief for the heartbreak of cameltoe.

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* Nickelson Wooster! A relative of Bertie’s, perhaps?