Fritinancy

Word of the Week: Shade Ball

Shade ball: A black plastic ball, 4 inches in diameter, designed to block sunlight from the surface of a reservoir. Also spelled shadeball.

Let's Family! Let's Museum!

Verbifying a noun is a popular (lazy) way for ad copywriters to say “Look at how creative and action packed we are!” Two current marketing efforts, from Tylenol and the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, perpetuate the trope.

Word of the Week: Pee Wall

Pee wall: An exterior wall in a public place that has been treated with urine-repellent paint. Also called anti-pee wall and pee-proof wall.

In July, the city of San Francisco, where public urination is a rife and malodorous problem, coated nine walls with a special super-hydrophobic substance called Ultra-Ever Dry. “At a molecular level,” the San Francisco Chronicle informed its readers, “the coating creates a surface texture with geometric shapes with peaks, or high points, that repel most water-based and some oil-based liquid. That means the painted surfaces will spray urine right back at the shoes and pants of unsuspecting relief-seekers.”

The concept was borrowed from Hamburg, Germany, where Ultra-Ever Dry was applied to walls in the St. Pauli district. The use of an informal/slang term for “urination” also appears to be an import.

“Hier nicht pinkeln! Wir pinkeln zurück”: “Don’t pee here! We pee back.” Image via Spiegel online.

 

 

According to the website of Ultratech International, makers of Ultra-Ever Dry:

Ultra-Ever Dry is a superhydrophobic (water) and oleophobic (hydrocarbons) coating that will repel most water-based and some oil-based liquids. Ultra-Ever Dry uses proprietary omniphobic technology to coat an object and create a surface chemistry and texture with patterns of geometric shapes that have “peaks” or “high points”.  These high points repel water, some oils, wet concrete, and other liquids unlike any other coating.

San Francisco has also introduced “Pit Stop” stations to the city’s “most impacted neighborhoods,” according to the Department of Public Works website. The Pit Stop facilities operate on limited schedules, mostly weekday afternoons.

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If you’re interested in the subject of public elimination, I recommend The Big Necessity: The Unmentionable World of Human Waste and Why It Matters, by Rose George, an English journalist who traveled around the world to investigate fancy flush toilets and luxurious bidets as well as the lives of the 2.6 billion people who live without any waste-disposal system whatsoever.

 

Name in the News: Addyi

Earlier this week, Sprout Pharmaceuticals announced that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration had granted approval of Addyi (pronounced “ADD-ee,” as though the “i” weren’t there), a once-daily, non-hormonal pill for the treatment of low sexual desire in premenopausal women. The prescription drug, whose generic name is flibanserin (fly-BAN-ser-in), will go on sale October 17, 2015.

Other reporters have commented on the medical and business aspects of the announcement. Even The Onion, America’s finest news source, has weighed in. I’m here to talk about the Addyi name—its spelling, its pronunciation, and its brand qualities.

August Linkfest

“Gen Z” is a lazy name, says the BridgeWorks consulting firm, which wants to replace it with “GenEdge.”

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You say Zomato, I say Zulily: The Name Inspector has been wondering about the Z-substitution trend in company naming.

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The Australian bird known as the Bell Miner doesn’t mine anything, and it doesn’t feed on bell-shaped substances. Spicks & Specks explores the fascinating false etymology. (Via Language Hat.)

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A track called “Worth It” from the girl group Fifth Harmony has been the summer’s surprise hit. Sonia Saraiya traces the cultural history of the “I’m worth it” affirmation, from L’Oreal advertising onward. (Bonus link: Read my 2013 column for the Visual Thesaurus about “I’m worth it” and “You deserve a break today.”) 

 

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How do you translate a colloquial, nonliteral expression like Trainwreck—the title of the new Amy Schumer feature film—into non-English languages? IMDb has a list of global akas; Mashable has helpfully re-translated some of them. (Not included in the Mashable list: Y de repente tú (“And suddenly you”), probably the most romantically inclined of the bunch. In France, by the way, the official title is Crazy Amy—yes, in English.

 

Translation of the French Canadian title, Cas désespéré.

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Egotarian, Tinderella, ghosting, and other new words Mike Pope has recently encountered. “I apologize in advance that a lot of these terms are unpleasant,” he adds.

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Seriously, Spellcheck? 

 

(Via James Harbeck.)

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Three guys were watching HBO’s “Silicon Valley” when it occurred to them to create a dictionary of jargon used on the show. The result is Silicon Valley Dictionary, where you’ll find definitions for terms like This changes everything (“Nothing has changed. Pure marketing”) and Awesome journey (“used when a startup has failed”).

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The New Devil’s Dictionary is a jaundiced update of Ambrose Bierce’s famous 1906 lexicon. Sample definition: “war on drugs (n.): The noble enterprise of preserving the sanctity of alcoholism.”

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And speaking of alcohol: Bianca Bosker reports for the New Yorker on “the state of modern winespeak” and “the nearly decade-long crusade against overwrought and unreliable flavor descriptions.”

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More on this theme: Did you know that there is a color called Drunk-Tank Pink? From Mental Floss, 19 colors you’ve probably never heard of. (Bonus link: Read my 2011 column for the Visual Thesaurus, “Where Have All the Ordinary Color Names Gone?”

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What can you buy at a Canadian homo store? What was 7-Eleven’s original name? The lore and lingo of convenience stores, presented by Wordnik’s Angela Tung.

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Politico: Donald Trump talks like a third-grader! Language Log: Hold on just a minute there!

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And for you fans of swears and swearing, I have a new post on Strong Language about “shit happens” and its many variants.

Word of the Week: Cuckservative

Cuckservative: An insult used against a Republican who is perceived to be “too soft or disingenuous,” according to a story published August 13 in the New York Times. The lone definition posted on Urban Dictionary (dated July 29, 2015), is harsher:

A cuckservative is a self-styled “conservative” who will cravenly sell out and undermine his home country’s people, culture, and national interest in order to win approval with parties hostile or indifferent to them.

The word is a portmanteau, or blend, of cuckold—a man whose wife commits adultery—and conservative; it emerged from right-wing, white nationalist, and anti-Semitic forums and spread via the hashtag #cuckservative. According to the Times story:

The Southern Poverty Law Center, which monitors hate groups, called the term the “ultimate insult” that the white nationalist movement can deliver to politicians who they feel have veered too far to the left. “The term, at its core, may be racist,” the group said.

On the Visual Thesaurus: Beyond Google’s Alphabet

My latest column for the Visual Thesaurus, published today, expands on yesterday's post about Alphabet, Google’s new holding company. The column considers Alphabet in the context of other company names borrowed from the lingo of language and grammar—Acronym, Palindrome, Semicolon, and more—as well as at other Alphabet names (and one Alpha Beta).

The paywall has been lifted on this one! Read “Beyond Google’s Alphabet: Brand Names from the Lingo of Language.”

Bonus link: Read Ben Zimmer’s Wall Street Journal column about Alphabet and the meanings of “alpha” and “beta” in business and technology.

Name in the News: Alphabet

Google’s surprise announcement, on Monday afternoon, that it was restructuring under a new holding company called Alphabet – abc.xyz on the Web – was greeted with a mix of enthusiasm (“a brilliant move”), skepticism (“the memorable, if unsightly, U.R.L. abc.xyz”), puzzlement (“Ohio man with @alphabet Twitter handle has ‘interesting’ end to day”), and snark (“Here’s what Twitter thinks about Google becoming Alphabet”). My own attention, of course, was captured by the new name and, especially, by the very interesting and forward-thinking URL. Here are my observations, in non-alphabetical order:

Word of the Week: Brosé

Brosé: Rosé wine favored by twentysomething men (“bros”).

Brosé has been in the news this summer on both sides of the Atlantic.

It lends itself to rhyme:

Extra, Extra!

Read all about ’em: names, slogans, and acronyms in the news (and the funny papers):