The official Trump typeface – as seen on hotels, airplanes, and campaign logo (but not on the failed steaks, wine, or university) – is Akzidenz Grotesk.
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Budweiser has announced that it’s rebranding its beer “America” for the duration of the U.S. election season. It’s not the first America-first stunt the brewery has pulled, notes Mark Wilson in Fast Co Design: previous summer-only editions have featured the Statue of Liberty and the American flag. But this bit of revisionism is especially thorough: “Almost every bit of type on the Budweiser label has been scrubbed away by Easter Egg patriotism, with new text citing the Pledge of Allegiance, the Star Spangled Banner, and America the Beautiful—all rendered in newly developed hand lettering, inspired by Budweiser’s archives.” For what it’s worth, Budweiser’s parent company, InBev, is headquartered in Belgium and Brazil.
One more political item, and then I’ll move on:
Defection index: "https://t.co/XH1m30KzM7" still going for only $10, but "https://t.co/jABQIU0ZiV" now priced at $799.
— Timothy Noah (@TimothyNoah1) May 6, 2016
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“Once again, the creators of an online naming poll failed to anticipate the mass appeal of the whimsical naming option that captured the internet's fancy and, when faced with the viral results of their endeavor, backed away rather instead of ponying up and respecting the views of the voting public,” writes Aja Romano in Vox. Translation: After “Boaty McBoatface” won an online poll to name a polar research ship, the UK’s Natural Environment Research Council eschewed democracy and instead named the vessel the RSS Sir David Attenborough, after the popular host of TV science programs. Still, there’s no denying that, as Romano points out, the vessel really does look like a Boaty McBoatface.
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A couple of good reads from Lingua Franca, the language blog of the Chronicle of Higher Education:
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The strange and rather R-rated saga of “gobbledygook,” by Ben Yagoda.
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Medieval Latin lives on in university mottos, by Allan Metcalf. (Related: my recent post on motto and my 2011 post on university mottos.)
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A spreadsheet of scientific terms misunderstood by the public, including evolve, theory, and abstract. Linguist Gretchen McCulloch has some ideas for expanding it.
I can definitely think of some language-related terms to add. "Passive", the notion of "correct English" etc https://t.co/7NWBhchbc6
— Gretchen McCulloch (@GretchenAMcC) May 9, 2016
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Last week the Social Security Administration published its annual list of the most popular baby names in the U.S. The Baby Name Wizard blog mined the results to discover the fastest-falling baby name of all time (it won’t come as a surprise), while Nancy’s Baby Names charted the most popular first letters of names (A for girls, J for boys).
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One hundred years ago, the least popular baby names included Vernal, Wava, Foy, and Dimple. Due for a revival?
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A Stanford PhD candidate used a neural network to generate hundreds of baby names, including Jeencia, Epheny, Malda, and Auberro. (Hat tip: Anthony Shore.)
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Why do fashion designers give personal names to their bags and clothes – like Alexa, Coco, and (especially) Zadie? Guardian columnist Hadley Freeman explains.
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Whimsical food names like “ants on a log” and “pigs in a blanket” “can be an important way to engage in cultural communication and validate personal identity.”
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From “acqui-hire” to “zero day exploit”: a Wordnik list of words covered in the new book Silicon Valley Speak, by Rochelle Kopp and Steven Gans. (Look for my review of the book soon.)
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Finally, a pro tip for logo designers: before approving the final version, check to make sure it doesn’t spell something upside down. This company, for example, is called iSMART.
@Fritinancy It's upside down pic.twitter.com/l5pl0KxPPW
— Andrea Behr (@AndyBehr) May 9, 2016
In the whimsical food names piece, somebody's Autocorrect has changed German "im" (in "Würstchen im Schlafrock") to "I'm." And on the subject of food lingo, I've been noticing that San Francisco restaurant menus have taken to calling a dish "hen." Since nobody serves rooster (try and find one for coq au vin--not easy) this strikes me as merely a way of giving unglamorous, weeknight "chicken" a vaguely farm-to-table air.
Posted by: john burke | May 12, 2016 at 07:47 AM