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BLAK MARKET

Coke has a new product, a beverage called Blak, that's spelled with a mark over the letter A that looks something like a tilde but it can't be. It's a Coca-Cola swash. A tilde is the mark over some N's in certain Spanish words indicating that the sound of the letter is N plus Y, as in "senor" (sir or mister). (I won't insert the tilde because it probably won't convert into e-mail.) The Spanish word canon with a tilde has turned into the English canyon. The tilde is a little wavy line that was originally a second letter N; the pronunciation was indicated by two N's in old Spanish. On the Blak bottle, I don't know if the wavy line is supposed to indicate some pronunciation of Blak other than just "black". Anyway, it's a sweet fizzy coffee drink. Blak is an unusual name for a Coke product, and the bottle is shrink-wrapped in an almost black plastic shroud. Is it supposed to appeal to black consumers or to a boho market? Is it supposed to sound and look European? Unfortunately it could remind some people of the "blecchh" which used to grace the margins of Mad magazine. Marketing is a tricky thing. (By the way, "blech" is a Yiddish word for an item used in Kosher cooking. Who knew?)

MIKE WRITES

Mike Sykes wrote about virtual:

Long, long ago, when the words virtual, transparent and real were coming into technical use in the context of computing, I remember being told:

If it doesn't exist but appears to, then it's virtual; if it does exist but you can't see it, then it's transparent; and if it exists and you can see it, then it's real.

Yet how often do we hear that something, such as a legal process, should be transparent, when what we mean is more visible?

Speaking of computerese, Oxford University Press says that "liveware" means humans (in the context of hardware and software). "Wetware" (also meatware) is a person, as conceived by sci fi / cyberpunk writer Rudy Rucker. (In the movie A Perfect Murder, the Michael Douglas character refers to murder as "wetwork".)

Mike also asked if there's a difference between podiatrist and chiropodist. Only linguistically, I think. Both are foot doctors. Pod means foot. The suffix trist comes from a Greek root iatros meaning to heal. Chiro means hand.

And on the "Hill blocks view" sign:

What we see in the UK is 'blind summit', which is odd, and only a little less so when one realises 'blind' is being used in the same sense as in 'blind alley' (possibly 'dead end' to you).

WORDS CONFUSED EASILY AND OFTEN

Incredulous/Incredible

Dan E. sent me three definitions of incredulous, one of which is the same as for incredible: "not easy to be believed" with a reference to that usage by Shakespeare. But this usage is now archaic, and more than that, incorrect, since perhaps the 18th century, according to Garner's Modern American Usage and Merriam-Webster's Dictionary of English Usage. Compare it with a similar word, believable, capable of being believed. We do not have a similar form, believous meaning believing, but believable could never mean believing easily.

Elegy/Eulogy

Elegy is from the Greek elegos, a mournful song, now meaning pretty much the same thing. Eulogy is also from the Greek, meaning good speech. The word is easy to remember because of words like euphemism and Eurythmics with Annie Lennox that contain the prefix eu (good) and logy or logo is in lots of words, meaning speech or words. Since eulogies are often given at funerals ~ good words about the departed ~ the confusion with a song or poem of mourning is understandable.

POLITICORHETORIC IN ACTION

Al Gore compared Bush to Neville Chamberlain, apparently because he thinks Bush ignored warnings about WMDs and Hurricane Katrina. Chamberlain ignored warnings about Hitler, and is notorious for appeasing Hitler rather than opposing him, so the comparison to Bush rather breaks down, especially since many have compared GWB to Hitler. I've read enough about Hitler that I'm quite sure this is invalid and hysterical name-calling. But Chamberlain ~ frankly, I'm puzzled. I suppose if you don't like GWB you could compare him to any other historical figure you don't care for: Bush is another Judas! Another Mata Hari! Another Genghis Khan! Another Maurice Chevalier!

Cynthia McKinney, D-GA, said following the Incident with a Washington DC policeman: “I am sorry that this misunderstanding happened at all, and I regret its escalation and I apologize. There should not have been any physical contact in this incident.” In case you don't know the story, she was entering a Washington DC building without identification and refused to stop when questioned by a police officer, who then put his hand on her shoulder or arm or something. Then she hit him. Her apology uses the passive voice and vague antecedents: she's sorry it happened, not sorry that she hit the policeman; the physical contact she referred to is ambiguous: his or hers? She doesn't say she's the one who escalated the incident. She's using a technique similar to the humorously ambiguous weasely job reference: "You'd be lucky to get him to work for you."

YOU CAN'T SAY THAT ANYMORE

I'm going to borrow a trick of the spammers and space out a few words here, hoping to bypass your spam filters.

"G a y" isn't the only word that can't be used anymore in its original meaning (cheery and bright).

"E jac u late" is another. As Bryan A. Garner notes, "though one of Henry James's favorites, this verb can no longer be used in sober writing as a synonym for 'exclaim.' Today it inevitably carries sexual overtones, even when the exclamatory meaning is the primary one."

One can't even expose oneself anymore, as silly people so often did in Jane Austen's books, for example. When they exposed themselves, they were simply exhibiting their foolishness in public. In Pride and Prejudice, Mr. Bennett says of one of his daughters, "Lydia will never be easy till she has exposed herself in some public place or other." Today, of course, Lydia might also be exposing herself literally and physically, at least from sternum to navel.

IDIOMS

Quotation of the Day from Garner's daily mailing:

The most convenient test of an idiom is: can it be translated word for word into a foreign language without producing nonsense? By this test phrases like 'How do you do?,' 'far and away,' and 'you are right' can be seen to be idiomatic. Ludicrous results can be achieved if a speaker with an imperfect command of a foreign language translates into it the elements of an idiom from his own language, as when two Englishmen, crossing the Alps, stayed the night at a monastery where only Latin was to be spoken. One of the Englishmen soon broke the rule and his friend thought it necessary to utter a warning: 'Nunc tunc.' ~ G.L. Brook, Words in Everyday Life 15 (1981).

I looked up "Nunc tunc" and figured out it's a literal translation of "Now then" (admonishing his friend for not speaking Latin). I don't know if Dan E. remembers this from Spanish class with Miss Rowe, but he used to amuse us by making up goofy literal translations such as "I'll be derecha espalda", meaning "I'll be right back". But derecha means on the right (not left), and espalda means the back of one's body. Simple pleasures.

And Fred says hippies used to make a joke about some underwear company that was said to have contributed to the (Vietnam) war effort, whose motto was jokingly said to be:

Semper ubi sub ubi.

This is literally "Always where under where" (Always wear underwear) with a nod to Semper Fi. Some hippies didn't wear U-trou, of course, to borrow a pseudo-military reference (trousers, under). Their motto ought to have been Nunquam ubi sub ubi.

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