Fritinancy

Word of the week: Henchman

This was the front page of the New York Daily News on August 22, 2018:

 

“All the President’s Henchmen”

 

The line puts a spin on the title of the most famous book (and movie) to come out of the Watergate scandal, which broke 45 years ago this month.

 

All the President’s Men (1974)

 

And that title was inspired by Robert Penn Warren’s political novel All the King’s Men, which won the Pulitzer Prize for literature in 1947 and was made into a 1949 movie starring Broderick Crawford (which won the Best Picture Oscar) and a 2006 movie starring Sean Penn (which has a miserable 11% rating on Rotten Tomatoes).

All the King’s Men (1946)

Word of the week: Measles

On Friday, August 17, the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health reported that a case of measles had been confirmed in “a non-resident tourist” who had visited six Santa Monica businesses within a three-day period earlier in the month. No details about the tourist were provided, but at least two of the restaurants he or she visited – Ivy’s at the Beach and Chez Jay – are considered “celebrity hangouts,” with pricey menus that have no options for children. That could suggest that the person is an adult, even though measles – a highly contagious viral infection spread by coughing or sneezing – is commonly considered a disease of childhood.

That is, it used to be a common disease of childhood, one that afflicted hundreds of thousands of children in the United States every year, and killed as many as 30 percent of them, usually from complications such as measles pneumonia. Measles can also cause blindness, mental retardation, and – in children born to mothers who contract the disease – permanent deafness. Overall, the risks are much greater for infected adults than for children, but it’s no picnic for kids, either. (Keep reading.)

Word of the week: White-caller crime

The first incident that made national headlines occurred right here in Oakland, directly across Lake Merritt from where I live. On April 29, a white woman later identified as Jennifer Schulte made a 911 call to report that two African American men were barbecuing in an area not designated for charcoal grills. A woman named Michelle Snider filmed the call on her own phone; the video, posted to YouTube, has attracted more than three million views. Also viral: the “BBQ Becky” meme.*

“BBQ Becky” on her phone, via BBC.

 

Word of the week: Quisling

After important events, people often rush to look up unfamiliar words in news coverage. As a public service, the Merriam-Webster Dictionary Twitter account often publicizes the top searches. Last Monday, after the two-party summit and press conference in Helsinki, the top look-ups were, in order, treason, abase, traitor, collusion, and presser. The last word is jargon for “press conference”; the other words reflect opinions about the behavior of the American president toward his Russian counterpart.

If the list had been a little longer, another, more exotic word might have been included: quisling.

What do you call politicians who betray their country for transitory political and financial advantage by working for a corrupt regime?

You call them quislings. And neither history nor irate citizens treat them well.

— Bob Garfield (@Bobosphere) July 16, 2018

Word of the week: Shun

Alan Dershowitz, the Harvard law professor who became famous as the defense counsel for Mike Tyson, O.J. Simpson, and other transgressing celebrities, has had his feelings hurt.

Although he claims to be a liberal Democrat, Dershowitz has publicly defended the civil liberties of Donald J. Trump, and because of that, he wrote in an opinion piece for The Hill published June 27, he is being “shunned” by some of his “old friends on Martha’s Vineyard,” where he spends his summers. He’s soldiering on, he told his readers, because “from a personal point of view, I could not care less* about being shunned by people whose views regarding dialogue I do not respect.” He did seem a tad preoccupied, though: He used some form of the word shun seven times in the essay. (He had not just an ax to grind but a book to hawk: The Case Against Impeaching Trump is being published today.)

 

Poster for The Shunning (2011). “Beautiful Katie Lapp has always felt something missing in her simple Amish existence -- until a mysterious ‘Englisher’ comes to Lancaster County looking for the baby girl she gave up for adoption 19 years ago.”

Name in the news: Harley-Davidson

Welcome to 2018, when a U.S. president takes to Twitter to threaten a 115-year-old American company that it will be “taxed like never before!” in retaliation for the company’s decision to move some production to Europe. The decision came after the European Union imposed a 31 percent tariff on imported motorcycles in response to the president’s new unilateral tariffs on imported steel and aluminum.

The company is Harley-Davidson, founded in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, in 1903 and still headquartered there.

A 1912 ad for Harley-Davidson, modestly touting “the motorcycle that is not uncomfortable.”

 

The meaning of the Harley-Davidson name is right there on the surface: The company was founded by William S. Harley and brothers Arthur and Walter Davidson back when naming companies after yourself was standard operating procedure. But there’s plenty of other Harley-Davidson naming lore that makes for good reading.

Harley-Davidson’s current advertising slogan, “All for Freedom, Freedom for All,” introduced in 2017, acquired a little extra nuance this week.

 

June linkfest

“The use of rainbows as logo design elements has fallen back almost to its pre-1970s level, while the use of rainbow colors in logos has taken off.” (Emblemetric)

Image via Emblemetric

 

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Remember tronc, possibly the worst corporate name ever? You can forget it now. (The Verge)

*

After 27 years, Greece has finally agreed to the formal name of its northern neighbor, the Republic of North Macedonia. (BBC)

*

This ad for Texas Congressional candidate Mary Jennings “MJ” Hegar sets a new standard for political advertising: It’s well written, brilliantly edited, and engaging.

Word of the week: Feckless

Those of you with long memories will recall that this is the second time feckless has been a Fritinancy word of the week. The first occasion was in 2012, when U.S. Senator John McCain used feckless to describe President Obama’s foreign policy.

This time around, feckless found itself in hotter water.

Image by erokism via Flickr

Word of the week: Truckle

“Well, Paul Ryan, you’re a free man now,” began the New York Times editorial that appeared on April 11, the day the Wisconsin congressman announced he’d be stepping down as House speaker and leaving Congress in January. Three paragraphs down, the editorial counseled Ryan about how to put his liberation to good use:

You don’t have to worry anymore about weathering a primary challenger from the far right. You don’t have to truckle before a blast of presidential tweets. You can use your remaining authority and credibility with your colleagues to pass legislation to make it harder for the president to fire Robert Mueller, the special counsel, and other officials at the Department of Justice. On your way out the door, on that crucial question, you still have a chance to put yourself on the right side of history.

To truckle before stands out in that paragraph. Its meaning is clear enough in context – something about deference, obsequiousness, sycophancy – but where does it come from?

Word of the week: Demonetization

Nasim Najafi Aghdam, the 39-year-old woman who shot three people at YouTube’s San Bruno, California, headquarters on April 3 before killing herself, is said to have been angry about the company’s policies, especially demonetization. According to an article in Entrepreneur, she had written on her website: “There is no equal growth opportunity on YOUTUBE or any other video sharing site, your channel will grow if they want to!!!!!”

Nasim Aghdam, via San Bruno Police.