Fritinancy

Word of the week: Boogaloo

Why is this man wearing an aloha shirt—in Nebraska, in February—while toting a big ol’ weapon inside a government building? And what does all of that have to do with the word of the week, boogaloo?

Brett Hendrix of Omaha with an AR-15 in the #Nebraska Capitol. Hendrix said he brought the gun to demonstrate the right to keep and bear arms. He opposes a gun bill that will be heard this afternoon in the #NELeg Judiciary Committee, viewable here: https://t.co/3k43sJrjfC pic.twitter.com/834lwqOK5Z

— Fred Knapp (@fredmknapp) February 21, 2020

 

Get ready for an only-in-America explanation.

December linkfest

The Namerology blog picks the defining baby names of the last decade—“The names that were not just hugely popular from 2010-19, but vastly more popular than in decades past…and future. They’re flying high, yet as the ’10s draw to a close they’re already starting to decline from their dizzying popularity peaks.”

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Chicago Tribune columnist Eric Zorn combed his newspaper’s archives for the first mentions of products, technologies, ideas, and terms that have become part of life since late 2009. His chronological list goes from A (Angry Birds) to Y (YOLO), and includes a bunch of words and brands you read about here first, including showrooming, FOMO, trigger warning, and antifa.

August linkfest

The Ohio State University definitely wants you to associate it with the definite article: The institution has applied for trademark protection for THE for use on shirts and hats. (h/t Alex Johnson)

Don’t look so surprised, says trademark lawyer Ed Timberlake.

In case anybody's curious:

THE

is already a registered trademark
(for cell phone battery chargers)https://t.co/ZFrC8ZUuEN#trademarks pic.twitter.com/NpmUxrq7pW

— Trademarks Are Magic (@TimberlakeLaw) August 14, 2019

Meanwhile, the University OF Michigan would also like a word. 

™ pic.twitter.com/bx2vTBUtst

— University of Michigan (@UMich) August 14, 2019

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Word of the week: Floint

Whenever a word appears for the first time in the New York Times, a bot called @NYT_first_said auto-tweets it. (The name for such an occurrence is hapax legomenon, Greek for “something said only once.”) Then another bot, @NYT_said_where, follows up with a contextual link.

On April 24, @NYT_first_said tweeted this:

floint

— New New York Times (@NYT_first_said) April 24, 2019

I rarely catch these first occurrences in the wild, but by sheer luck I too had spotted floint. It appeared in a story, published in the Thursday Styles section of the print newspaper, about Carol Spencer, the 86-year-old designer who worked for Mattel from 1963 to 1998 and created many of the most memorable wardrobe items worn by fashion dolls Barbie, Skipper, Ken, and the rest of the posse. Spencer recently published a book, Dressing Barbie, about her career.

Lit names

No, not that “lit.” These brand names are inspired by literature and borrowed from the language of … well, language. Why? I can only guess. Maybe they want to communicate something about creativity and inspiration, but who knows? The names appear literary, but the stories their owners are telling are mysteries. And sometimes, as Dr. Freud might have said, a trend is just a trend.

September linkfest

Mountain Dew, the neon-yellow-green soft drink brand owned by PepsiCo, evidently failed to consult anyone in Scotland before it introduced its new ad slogan, “Epic thrills start with a chug.” If it had, it would have learned that chug is Scottish slang for masturbate. (Jelisa Castrodale for Vice, via Language Log)

 

That word: It does not mean what you think it means. Not in Scotland, anyway. (Via @jaysebro)

How Havaianas got its name

The Brazilian footwear brand Havaianas – established in 1962 and sold in the U.S. since 2007 – is synonymous with colorful, rubber-soled flip-flops that sell for $24 and up. (A current model, studded with Swarovski crystals and suitable for wedding parties, will set you back $78 a pair.) I knew more or less how to pronounce the brand name – hah-vah-YA-nas – but I’m chagrined to say that until very recently I had confidently subscribed to a completely baseless story about its origins.

Havaianas “Brazil” from the current collection

Word of the week: Tacticool

“We are living in the age of tacticool, and the AR-15 pattern rifle is the weapon of the age,” wrote Kelsey Atherton and Ian Boudreau in a March 2018 article for Waypoint, the VICE channel for gaming culture. Tacticool, they continued, “has become a widespread aesthetic expression associated with the kind of militant hypermasculinity that gave us a ‘tactical lip balm’ Kickstarter and ‘everyday carry’ versions of mundanities like wallets and charging cables (check out this utility moneyclip with a multitool from 5.11, who have a ‘product integration partnership’ with Ubisoft).”

“Swiss Army gun,” posted on International Military Forums, May 2006.

 

In a related Twitter thread posted on June 18, Boudreau noted that tacticool “has completely infected police departments,” which now dress their officers in uniforms “designed for combat.”

Civilian law-enforcement officers and armored vehicle in Ferguson, Missouri, August 2014. Source: MSNBC.

February linkfest

The Oscar-nominated 2017 film Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri has inspired at least two real-world imitations, reports AdWeek. After the shooting massacre in a Parkland, Florida, high school, the group Progressive Turnout Project placed a billboard with a gun-reform challenge outside the Janesville, Wisconsin, office of House Speaker Paul Ryan, who has accepted $61,401 in contributions from the National Rifle Association.

“17 killed in their classrooms. Still no gun reform? How come, Paul Ryan?”

 

And in London, Justice4Grenfell placed three mobile billboards outside Grenfell Towers, the site of disastrous fire last year that killed 71 people.

 

“71 dead / and still no arrests? / How come?”

 

For comparison, here are the billboards that appear in the film, which stars Frances McDormand.

 

Solstice

The Northern Hemisphere’s summer solstice – literally, “the point at which the sun seems to stand still” – occurred at 9:24 p.m. Pacific Time on Tuesday, June 20. But for some brands, the solstice never ends.