Fritinancy

May linkfest

On the occasion of the death of R&B singer Billy “The Kid” Emerson, at 97, Ben Zimmer applied his lexicographical lens to a term immortalized by Emerson: “doodly-squat.” Did you know that doodly-squat is what linguists call a “vulgar minimizer” or—I love this—a “squatitive”? (Strong Language)

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Ramped up, amped up, ratchet up, gin up, up the ante: a long and poetic list of clichés. (Gift article)

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If any non-Jews out there are starting a business, I am available to consult on whether your proposed brand name means “butt” in Yiddish pic.twitter.com/SnSXBTeem2

— Dan Berger (@dnbrgr) May 22, 2023

Working words

This post was inspired in large part by Mike Pope’s April 14 “Friday words” post, a big roundup of words “about the changing face of the office”—words like Great Resignation and quiet quitting and everyone’s favorite, bullshit jobs. Within days after I read that post, three other work-focused publications landed in my mailbox: the New York Times Sunday Magazine’s “Future of Work” issue; the May issue of Harper’s, with two stories about “the crisis of work”; and the spring issue of Berkeley Haas, the publication of the UC Berkeley Haas School of Business, whose cover story is headlined “How Will Work Evolve?” (I don’t know why I receive Berkeley Haas; I attended UC Berkeley but was never enrolled in the business school.)

And lo, it turns out there are even more new work-related words to write about! Here are some of the words that have caught my attention.

 

New York Times Sunday magazine. Illustration by Brian Rea.

March linkfest

A link of my own to kick things off: I wrote for the Strong Language blog about a product name I was surprised (to put it mildly) to encounter in a family-owned, family-friendly grocery store in Berkeley, California.

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I also continue to publish about once a week on Medium, a platform that actually pays me! This week’s story is about Pepsi’s new logo—and the logo that preceded it, back in 2008 (friend link), which the branding agency sold with a totally bonkers presentation. If you’re not a Medium member, use this referral link to join. Yes, there’s a fee, but you’ll gain access to lots of other good writers, too. And maybe you’ll want to start publishing there yourself, and you’ll be glad you made this tiny investment.

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For more than a century, the New York Times’s nameplate included a period. Then, one day in 1961, it was gone. “Dropping the period caused much consternation and soul-searching at the Times, until finally the production manager came up with the calculation that eliminating the period would save some $600 a year in ink!” (Steven Heller for Print Magazine)

The final full stop?

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"Forsake your namesake"

Let the record show that I consume neither whisky (as it’s spelled in Scotland and Canada) nor whiskey (Ireland and the U.S.) and that, as fond as I am of my Irish and Irish-American friends, I am not a fan of St. Patrick’s Day, which in San Francisco, at least, might as well be called St. Inebriate’s Day. 

Still, for some reason I’ve been targeted on New Twitter by a promotion for Bushmills USA, the Jersey City arm of Old Bushmills Distillery of County Antrim, Northern Ireland. And the ad has been breaking my head.

New from me on Medium: A four-letter word

Not the sort of four-letter word I write about for the Strong Language blog. This four-letter word is just, and it played a significant role in a famous American advertisement.

Read all about it (friend link): The Four-Letter Word That Changed Advertising History.

 

February linkfest

I’ve started listening to the “Tech Won’t Save Us” podcast, expertly hosted by Canadian tech critic Paris Marx, who’s joined each week by an expert who critically examines “the tech industry, the powerful people who helm it, and the products and services it unleashes on the world.” Separating tech from politics, says Marx, “has consequences for us all, especially the most vulnerable.” I’m looking forward to reading books by two recent guests, Malcolm Harris (Palo Alto: A History of California, Capitalism, and the World), and Edward Niedermeyer (Ludicrous: The Unvarnished History of Tesla Motors). Niedermeyer introduced me to the useful word autonowashing, “the practice of making unverified or misleading claims which misrepresent the appropriate level of human supervision required by a partially or semi-autonomous product, service or technology.” (More -washing compounds here.)

 

“Tech Won’t Save Us” logo tee

 

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Books by friends

Something I hadn’t counted on when I plunged into blogging and then Twitter was how online connections could turn into real-life acquaintanceships—even friendships. By now, 16-plus years after I started blogging, I’ve met a number of internet pals: writers, name developers, linguists, and editors. When one of them accomplishes something special, I’m among the first to cheer.

Today I bring you news of new books by two internet friends. Huzzah!

December linkfest

Happy Festivus, the holiday for the rest of us! I don’t have the traditional aluminum pole, and this year I’m sparing you my Airing of Grievances. (But you can air your own grievance on FestivusWeb.) As for the other primary tradition, I discovered this year that there’s a Feats of Strength cocktail, which sounds kind of like a hot toddy. Did you know that English toddy comes from Hindi tari, which means “palm sap”?

“Festivus-infused” maple syrup from family-owned, Vermont-based Runamok. You can buy it at REI.

Read my previous Festivus posts.

And here’s a year-end link roundup:

November linkfest

Merriam-Webster chooses its words of the year based on the number of dictionary lookups. The 2022 winner, gaslighting, saw a 1740% increase, “with high interest throughout the year.” Runners-up include omicron, oligarch, and queen consort.

Gaslight (1944): “Strange drama of a captive sweetheart!”

 

And bear in mind Benjamin Dreyer’s sage counsel:

If we’re talking about fucking with someone’s sanity, it’s gaslighted. If we’re talking about a Victorian theater, it’s gaslit.

— Benjamin Dreyer (@BCDreyer) May 26, 2019

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A newish sense of “cover”

The verb to cover has lots of meanings: to lay something over something else, to apply a surface layer onto something, to make a new recording of another performer’s song, to protect, to match in value, even to copulate (said of horses, usually). Over the last five years I’ve noticed an emerging sense: “to appear on the cover of a magazine.”

So far, I’ve seen cover in this sense only in fashion and celebrity journalism, with veteran style bloggers Tom and Lorenzo in the vanguard.

Here’s an example from November 2017: “Ruth Negga covers @BazaarUK”

Ruth Negga covers @BazaarUK https://t.co/VV0vdifp5Y pic.twitter.com/PXepwF51r3

— Tom and Lorenzo (@tomandlorenzo) November 3, 2017

And here’s an example from this week from Elle magazine: “Gisele Bündchen covers ELLE’s October 2022 issue.”