Fritinancy

March linkfest

Tuscan chicken, Tuscan toilets, Tuscan hummus: What exactly does Tuscan mean, anyway? (The New Yorker)

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How do nouns become verbs? Why are we OK with buttering our bread or boycotting a business, but clench our teeth at impacting and efforting? (JStor Daily) More on how branding weirds language (by me).

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And 1 extra grammatical error than Original Ready Crust too. pic.twitter.com/uAT87Bw5LV

— Jonathon Owen (@ArrantPedantry) March 14, 2016

 

 

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A 12-stanza poem composed entirely from the titles of SXSW panels.

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Word of the Week: Mx.

Mx.: A gender-neutral honorific that may be used in place of “Mr.,” “Mrs., “Miss,” or “Ms.” Pronounced mix or mux.

Mx. was in the news this week after Jonathan Dent, assistant editor at the Oxford English Dictionary (OED), told the Sunday Times (UK) that the term is being considered for inclusion in the dictionary’s next edition. (Access to the full article is restricted to subscribers.) The term is regarded as an option for transgender people and people who wish to conceal their gender identities.

(Various other news outlets reported that Mx. will be added or has already been added to the OED.)

“Over the past two years the title has been quietly added to official forms and databases” in the UK, the Times reported. Dent told the Times that the first recorded use of Mx. was in an American magazine, Single Parent, in 1977: “The early proponents of the term seem to have had gender politics as their central concern [and] saw the title as one which could sidestep the perceived sexism of the traditional ‘Mr’, ‘Mrs’ and ‘Miss’.” The blog Practical Androgyny has traced the subsequent history of the term.

In the US, the PBS Newshour reported last week, “There is currently no widely-used gender-neutral replacement for ‘Mr.’ or ‘Mrs./Ms,’ and this addition would mark the first time that such an option appeared in the dictionary.”

In Sweden, the neuter pronoun hen—coined in the 1960s—was added earlier this year to the official Swedish language dictionary as an alternative to han (he) and hon (she).

Mx—the period is American style; periods are omitted from honorifics in British English—has several other meanings:

• An abbreviation for Maxwell, a unit of magnetic flux named for James Clerk Maxwell (1831-1879), who presented the unified theory of electromagnetism in 1865.
• A matrix algebra interpreter and numerical optimizer for structural equation modeling and other types of statistical modeling of data.
• The country domain of Mexico (.mx).
• An abbreviation for motocross (MX).
• An abbreviation for mail exchanger (MX).

Logitech MXMaster mouse.

Word of the Week: Retcon

Retcon: Abbreviation for “retroactive continuity,” “reframing past events to serve a current plot need.” (Source: TV Tropes.) Also used as a verb meaning “to revise history.”

“Retroactive continuity” first appeared in print in a scholarly 1973 book, The Theology of Wolfhart Pannenberg, where it was an English translation of a German phrase, “Kontinuät nach rückwärts.” A Wikipedia entry quotes the relevant passage:

Pannenberg’s conception of retroactive continuity ultimately means that history flows fundamentally from the future into the past, that the future is not basically a product of the past.

The term was popularized in the 1980s by the comic-book and science-fiction communities; Damian Cugley has claimed credit for shortening it to “retcon” in a 1988 Usenet discussion of the comic book Saga of the Swamp Thing. It has since been applied to many kinds of serial fiction, including television shows such as “The Simpsons,”  “in which the timeline of the family's history must be continually shifted forward to explain them not getting any older” (Wikipedia).

In the last decade or so, “retcon” has been appearing in political journalism as well, substituting for the previously popular “revisionism” and its derivatives.

My husband on Obama's unconvincing attempt to retcon "If you like your insurance, you can keep it. Period." http://t.co/qQJRkv4x92

— Megan McArdle (@asymmetricinfo) November 5, 2013

The link goes to an article by Peter Sunderman in Reason:

If you’re a fan of comic books or other types of serial fiction, you’re probably familiar with the concept of the “retcon”—a made-up word that stands for “retroactive continuity.” …

I wonder if President Obama is a comic book fan. Because with the updated version of his oft-repeated promise that individuals who like their health plans can keep them, he’s essentially retconned himself.

I found citations for “retcon” from the George W. Bush era as well. An October 2004 post in the blog Burnt Electrons was titled “So Now We Retcon Wars...” A satirical May 2005 post on the Defective Yeti blog invented a quote for Ken Mehlman, then chairman of the Republican National Committee: “Americans have always been very accepting of our retcons.”

Google Ngram for “retroactive continuity” and “retcon.”

 

From TV Tropes:

As the number of twists and misdirections in a story becomes higher, it becomes more difficult to tell whether an event actually is a retcon (which implies that the writers changed their minds), or a misdirection (which implies that the writers intended the “retconned” version all along, and had been deliberately misleading the audience before). In some cases, it is impossible to tell, short of reading the author's mind (even then, it might not helped, as it's entirely possible for an author to be on the fence about what they're planning to do).

The Airing of Grievances: Fifth Anniversary Edition

I bring glad tidings for Festivus 2013! Last week Denver celebrated its second annual Beer Festivus (“A Beer Festival for the Rest of Us!”). There’s a Festivus pole constructed of Pabst Blue Ribbon cans inside the Capitol in Tallahassee, Florida, erected by “artist/protester/drinker of cheap beer Chaz Stevens” to protest the Nativity scene in the same government building. And I’m back for the fifth consecutive year with a public Airing of Grievances, one of the canonical rites of this defiantly non-canonical holiday.

If you go in for tradition, Festivus is celebrated on December 23. But we Festivusians say feh! to tradition. We also say, “I’ve got a lot of problems with you people!”

Source.

RIP OMG

Two moments of silence, if you please.

Obit #1: FierceCable, July 23, 2013.

Cablevision Shutting Down OMGFAST Wireless Broadband Service

Cablevision (NYSE: CVC) said Tuesday that it is shutting down its OMGFAST wireless broadband service in Florida next month. …

“OMGFAST will be discontinuing its voice and broadband services.  We are in the process of notifying existing customers so they can identify alternative services,” Cablevision told FierceCable in a statement late Tuesday. While Cablevision didn't announce a specific shutdown date for OMGFAST, a recorded message on its customer service line Tuesday said that service in Fort Lauderdale, Boca Raton and 10 other cities would be discontinued on Aug. 19.

(Via my brother Michael the cable maven.)

 

Obit #2: TechCrunch, August 5, 2013.

OMGPOP Team Tried to Buy Back Its Site, but Zynga Killed It Instead

OMGPOP almost got an extra life, but Zynga said ‘game over’. Zynga just finalized plans to shut down OMGPOP, the game developer of Draw My Thing it acquired for $200 million in March 2012.  But multiple sources familiar with Zynga tell TechCrunch the OMGPOP team was in direct contact with Zynga leadership in an attempt to buy back the site or continue operating it, yet Zynga refused.

 

Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

Jacked Again

A scant two days after publishing a post about the “Jacked” naming trend I learned about yet another jacked-up brand name.

Cracker Jack’D image from Gawker.

I’m a little late to this party: the Cracker Jack’D brand extension was announced last November by parent company Frito-Lay and started appearing in stores in December. The jacked ingredient in Cracker Jack’D is caffeine: the equivalent of a cup of coffee in every two-ounce bag, according to The Impulsive Buy. The company says Cracker Jack’D is intended only for adult consumers, and of course that stern warning will be 100 percent effective.

Also jacked up: the calorie count. Each wee bag contains about 450 calories (and 680 milligrams of sodium, if you’re counting). Original Cracker Jack has 120 calories per four-ounce “serving” and 70 mg of sodium.

(Right about now might be a good time for you to take a break and read “The Extraordinary Science of Addictive Junk Food,” the compelling cover story of the February 24 New York Times Magazine. It’s a long excerpt from Michael Moss’s new book, Salt Sugar Fat: How the Food Giants Hooked Us, and it contains revelations like this one: a serving of Yoplait brand yogurt contains twice as much sugar as a serving of marshmallow-centric Lucky Charms breakfast cereal.)

I can’t explain the apostrophe or the capitalized D in the Cracker Jack’D name. They may be there to preserve the integrity (so to speak) of the original Cracker Jack name, to look old-timey and folksy (like Amaz’n Asian Chik’n and Chop’t), or because some designer thought they looked cool. Less cool is the official spelling: Cracker Jack®’D.

Cracker Jack is one of the oldest surviving food brands in America; Andrew F. Smith, author of The Encyclopedia of Junk Food and Fast Food, calls it “America’s first junk food.” A version of the caramel-corn-and-peanut mix was introduced at the Chicago World’s Fair in 1893, and the first batch of branded Cracker Jack was produced in 1896. According to company lore, an enthusiastic sampler gave the brand its name when he exclaimed, “That’s crackerjack!” The “prize in every box” was introduced in 1912; the brand mascots, Sailor Joe and his dog Bingo, first appeared in 1918.

The Cracker Jack company was family owned until 1964, when it was sold to Borden. Borden sold the brand to Frito-Lay in 1997.

There are no prizes inside packages of Cracker Jack’D (get over it; you’re a grownup!). Flavors include Cocoa Java, Vanilla Mocha, Salted Caramel, Cheddar BBQ, and the suspiciously kid-friendly-sounding PB and Chocolate.

By the way, the original brand name is always singular: Cracker Jack. That’s why it rhymes with “…if I never get back.”

Word of the Week: Doxing

Doxing: “The practice of investigating and revealing a target subject’s personally identifiable information, such as home address, workplace information and credit card numbers, without consent.” (Source: Know Your Meme.) From docs (short for documents). Sometimes spelled doxxing.

From “Reddit’s Doxxing Paradox,” a February 4 post on the legal blog Popehat:

You might recall that popular social media site Reddit doesn’t like doxxing — that is, the public identification of online speakers and revelation of their personal information. Gawker’s public identification of vile Reddit creeper and troll Violentacrez was controversial to many Redditors, condemned by Reddit administrators, and has led to some Reddit mods engaging in a long-term ban of links to Gawker media sites.

So — Reddit’s culture is strongly against doxxing. Right?

Well — sort of.

Doxing was also in the news this month in connection with security breaches at the Federal Reserve and Department of Energy in which personal details about employees and contractors were grabbed. “Such an information leak, known as doxing, is a popular way among hacktivists to embarrass a target,” reported the information-technology publication EWeek.

According to the Know Your Meme entry, “doxing” was originally used in the early 2000s by computer hackers involved with the distribution of pirated software. (Urban Dictionary’s earliest entry is dated October 6, 2003.) In the late 2000s, “it grew into a harassment tactic used by members of Anonymous” – a loosely organized hacktivist group – during operations against the white nationalist Hal Turner, the Church of Scientology, and other targets.

On the Visual Thesaurus: XOXO for Valentine’s Day

In honor of Valentine’s Day, my new column for the Visual Thesaurus is all about XO, the abbreviation for “kiss and hug” (or is it “hug and kiss”?). A recent article in The Atlantic commented on the rise of xo (and xoxo and even xoxoxo) in women’s workplace email. My own focus is on kissy-huggy brands: xoJane, the women’s “lifestyle website” founded by Jane Pratt; XOXO wine (from Canada!), the XOXO Festival in Portland, Oregon, and many others.

XOXO: lipsticks in the March 2013 DHC skincare and cosmetics catalog.

As a Valentine’s Day gift, access is free to all (but of course you’ll want to subscribe anyway). Here’s an excerpt:

How did X and O come to represent affection? Circuitously, it seems. The OED’s earliest citation for X meaning “kiss” is from 1763, in the signature on a letter from Gilbert White, a minister: “I am with many a xxxxxxx and many a Pater noster and Ave Maria, Gil. White.” But Stephen Goranson, a researcher at Duke University, is skeptical about that citation. He noted recently on the American Dialect Society’s listserv that White’s X’s may have in fact been crosses that represented not “kisses” but “blessings.” The “kiss” interpretation evolved from the “blessing” one; “unimpeachably kiss-identified” uses of X’s, wrote Goranson, didn’t appear until the late 19^th century. (“Sealed with a kiss,” Goranson added, “is much older, but those sealings are generally direct kissing not epistolary.”)

Read the rest of the column.

And here’s a little blog bonus. Have you ever wondered why XOXO means “kisses and hugs” but OXO doesn’t? So have I. I did some research into OXO brands in the U.S. and U.K. and learned these interesting tidbits about the U.S. OXO, maker of ergonomic household tools:

• “OXO’s founder, Sam Farber, chose the name ‘OXO’ because whether it’s horizontal, vertical, upside down or backwards, it always reads ‘OXO’.”
• OXO employees are called OXOnians, which is also what students or former students at the University of Oxford (England) are called.
• People who are fanatical about OXO tools are called OXOniacs.
• OXO owns a beauty-products company called Helen of Troy. which sells products with some brand names you may have heard of, including Vitalis, Final Net, and Brut.

Somethin’s Missin’

Picking up on yesterday’s theme of apostrophe’d brand names, here are more examples of squiggles in places you wouldn’t expect to find them.

Exhibit A: Amaz’n Asian Sesame Chik’n.

 

I learned about this frozen product at The Impulsive Buy, which tested it and found it “not amaz’n, but appetiz’n.” The “chik’n” spelling here communicates “just kiddin’ – it’s veggie chicken!” That isn’t a hard-and-fast spelling rule, though. As I wrote in a 2011 post about the names of “further processed foods”: “Chik’n (or chick’n) can be chicken-derived or just chicken-ish. It can come from any of a dozen or so unrelated companies. The only thing the odd spellings guarantee is a certain degree of unnatural-ness.”

As for “amaz’n,” I surmise that it’s there 1) to chime with “Asian” and 2) to mirror the look of “chik’n.”

For what it’s worth, “amazing” topped the list of Lake Superior State University’s 2012 List of Banished Words, and there’s a thread on Yelp’s Portland (Oregon) site titled “I Hate the Word ‘AMAZING’.”

 

Exhibit B: Chop’t.

I’d never heard of Chop’t—the fast-salad chain, not to be confused with “Chopped,” the Food Network program—until I read Matthew Yglesias’s withering comments about it on Slate. (My excuse: there are no Chop’t restaurants outside New York and Washington, DC.) Yglesias is annoyed by Chop’t’s wanton use of “Cobb” to describe any old seasonal salad (see also “Stop the Cobb-sanity”), and I can’t say I disagree. Salad historians tell us that the Cobb salad was invented at the Brown Derby in Hollywood and named for the restaurant’s owner, Robert Cobb; the requisite components are chopped greens, tomato, bacon, boiled or roasted breast of chicken (not chik’n!), hard-boiled egg, chives, Roquefort cheese, and red-wine vinaigrette. Yes, hominy, pepper jack cheese, and pita chips are tasty, but they do not belong in a Cobb salad. (See “Flagstaff Food Truck Cobb” on the current seasonal menu.)

But I digress: my own interest is in “Chop’t,” in which the apostrophe replaces a couple of letters and the T substitutes for D, possibly to approximate the word’s actual pronunciation but more likely because CHOPTSALAD.COM was available for purchase.

The spelling conveys a vague if inaccurate sense of old-timey Britishness. But mostly the apostrophe-t just calls attention to itself, the way gratuitous umlauts in brand names do. (The British do prefer -t suffixes for some past-tense verbs such as leapt, spilt, and learnt. I even came across an argument that dreamt and dreamed have different meanings; this may be true in Commonwealth countries, but not in the US.) 

For an even odder example of -ed changing to apostrophe-t, see my 2008 post about “home bake’t delicious muffin.” And for more about “the most misunderstood and misused piece of punctuation in the language,” see The Dreaded Apostrophe.

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UPDATE: Commenter Clachnit reminded me of the Kia cee'd, which I wrote about in (can it be?) 2006.

Extra-Spesh

During the last month or so I’ve been seeing a specific type of abbreviation in brand names. Here are four examples:

 

Presh Designer Collective, a jewelry store in San Anselmo, California.

 

Delish, a cooking site launched in 2006 by Hearst and MSN.

 

 

“So Profesh and So Green Dress* from Modcloth.

 

FASHtrack, a blog at HollywoodReporter.com.

Noted previously: Nutrish, Rachael Ray’s dog-food brand.

These names have at least three things in common. They’re truncations—from “precious,” “delicious,” “professional,” “fashion,” and “nutrition” respectively—that end in /sh/. (FASHtrack is also a pun on “fast track.”) They sound casual (cazh?), conversational, and snappy. And they’re targeted at female, or mostly female, audiences. I don’t think the last point is coincidental: Not only does the “soft” -sh ending evoke femininity, but this particular style of abbreviation has been associated with young women’s conversation for a long time.

How long? Well, take a look at these lyrics:

Don’t mind telling you, in my humble fash
That you thrill me through, with a tender pash,
When you said you care, ’magine my emoshe
I swore then and there, permanent devoshe …

They were originally sung by Adele Astaire, sister of Fred, in the Broadway musical Funny Face, and later (and more famously) by Ella Fitzgerald. They’re from the vamp to “’S Wonderful,” which was written in 1927 by Ira and George Gershwin.

Did you miss that date? I’ll say it again: 1927.

There really is nothing new under the sun. In fact, I wrote about this very subject almost exactly six years ago.

UPDATE: Via a comment, Robert Lane Greene reminded me of his February 2012 post in Johnson, The Economist's language blog, about this type of sound change. Definitely worth a read.

 

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* I can’t resist sharing the copy on the So Profesh and So Green Dress, because it sounds like a combination of machine translation (translaysh?) and drunk-texting:

Looking as energetic as the sun on a strong beanstalk, you step out for your workday wearing the kelly-green hue of this casual-chic A-line. With your brown tights tucked into matching mocha pumps beneath simple waist pleats, you can’t help but curl your lips into a healthy smile, and nodding above V-shaped collar pleats to all you pass, you find smitten grins in return. Skip from meetings to project collaborations with this side-zipped dress keeping your look just as crisp as when you began your morning, and you might feel a promotion coming on as a result of your awesome energy!

Note to copywriter: You “curl your lips” into a sneer, not a smile.