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    <title>Fritinancy</title>
    
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    <id>tag:typepad.com,2003:weblog-366527</id>
    <updated>2009-12-04T10:45:39-08:00</updated>
    <subtitle>Names, brands, writing, and the quirks of the English language. </subtitle>
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    <link rel="self" href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/typepad/NancyFriedman/away_with_words" type="application/atom+xml" /><atom10:link xmlns:atom10="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom" rel="hub" href="http://pubsubhubbub.appspot.com" /><entry>
        <title>Naming Notes from TV Land</title>
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        <id>tag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a00d8341c4f9453ef0120a5f38429970b</id>
        <published>2009-12-04T10:45:39-08:00</published>
        <updated>2009-12-05T08:27:26-08:00</updated>
        <summary>"Every division of the company is reaching out to the middle of the country. Our new mammogram machine is called the Get 'Er Done 2000." — Network executive Jack Donaghy (Alec Baldwin), 30 Rock (Oct. 15). "Then I came up with the best baby name of all time: Drizzle." —...</summary>
        <author>
            <name>Nancy Friedman</name>
        </author>
        <category scheme="http://www.sixapart.com/ns/types#category" term="Baby Names" />
        <category scheme="http://www.sixapart.com/ns/types#category" term="Television" />
        
        
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<div xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><p>"Every division of the company is reaching out to the middle of the country. Our new mammogram machine is called the Get 'Er Done 2000." — <a href="http://www.entertonement.com/clips/kpdqhzvyrz--Get-er-done-2000" target="_blank">Network executive Jack Donaghy</a> (Alec Baldwin), <em><a href="http://www.nbc.com/30-rock/" target="_blank">30 Rock</a></em> (Oct. 15).</p>

<p>"Then I came up with the best baby name of all time: Drizzle." — McKinley High School quarterback <a href="http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Glee_%28TV_series%29#Throwdown" target="_blank">Finn Hudson </a>(Cory Monteith) to his pregnant girlfriend Quinn Fabray (Dianna Agron), <em><a href="http://www.fox.com/glee/" target="_blank">Glee</a></em> (Oct. 14). *</p><p>Speaking of baby names, when <em>30 Rock</em>'s Tracy Jordan (Tracy Morgan) decides he needs a baby girl to make his life complete, he already has the name: Chewbaqueena (<a href="http://www.nbc.com/30-rock/video/episodes/#vid=1181727/?__source=recent-eps-module" target="_blank">Dec. 3</a>).</p>

<p>Remember the <em>S.S. Minnow</em>, the shipwrecked vessel on <em><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0057751/" target="_blank">Gilligan's Island</a></em> (1964-1967)? It was named for Federal Communications Commission chairman <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newton_N._Minow" target="_blank">Newton Minow</a>, who in 1961 gave a speech decrying television as "a vast wasteland." Minow's daughter Nell Minow is a movie critic and chairwoman of the Corporate Library, a research group specializing in corporate governance. -- <a href="http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/10/12/091012fa_fact_owen" target="_blank">"Nell Minow and C.E.O. Compensation,"</a> <em>New Yorker</em>, Oct. 12, 2009.</p>

<p>__</p>

<p>* <span style="font-size: 12px;">"Finn" and "Quinn" are themselves über-zeitgeist-y baby names. Check out their trend lines on Baby Name Wizard's <a href="http://www.babynamewizard.com/voyager" target="_blank">NameVoyager</a>.<br /></span></p>

<p /></div>
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    <feedburner:origLink>http://nancyfriedman.typepad.com/away_with_words/2009/12/naming-notes-from-tv-land.html</feedburner:origLink></entry>
    <entry>
        <title>The Hell They Say</title>
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        <link rel="replies" type="text/html" href="http://nancyfriedman.typepad.com/away_with_words/2009/12/the-hell-they-say.html" thr:count="2" thr:updated="2009-12-04T10:36:20-08:00" />
        <id>tag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a00d8341c4f9453ef01287608fd13970c</id>
        <published>2009-12-03T11:34:17-08:00</published>
        <updated>2009-12-03T11:32:19-08:00</updated>
        <summary>Paved with good intentions:</summary>
        <author>
            <name>Nancy Friedman</name>
        </author>
        <category scheme="http://www.sixapart.com/ns/types#category" term="Holidays" />
        <category scheme="http://www.sixapart.com/ns/types#category" term="Magazines" />
        
        
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<div xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><p>Paved with good intentions:<br /> </p><p /><p /><p><a href="http://nancyfriedman.typepad.com/.a/6a00d8341c4f9453ef0120a70679ff970b-popup" onclick="window.open( this.href, '_blank', 'width=640,height=480,scrollbars=no,resizable=no,toolbar=no,directories=no,location=no,menubar=no,status=no,left=0,top=0' ); return false"><img alt="Hellish" border="0" class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00d8341c4f9453ef0120a70679ff970b " src="http://nancyfriedman.typepad.com/.a/6a00d8341c4f9453ef0120a70679ff970b-800wi" style="display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" title="Hellish" /></a> </p><p><span style="font-size: 11px;"><br /></span></p><p /></div>
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    <feedburner:origLink>http://nancyfriedman.typepad.com/away_with_words/2009/12/the-hell-they-say.html</feedburner:origLink></entry>
    <entry>
        <title>Where Did They Get That Name?</title>
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        <id>tag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a00d8341c4f9453ef0120a6f966f2970b</id>
        <published>2009-12-02T07:19:33-08:00</published>
        <updated>2009-12-02T07:19:33-08:00</updated>
        <summary>Brand names come from myriad sources. Here are some names with unusual provenances: HaaT, a clothing line designed by Issey Miyake protegée Makiko Minagawa, is said to take its name from a Sanskrit word meaning "village market." (That's the company's story; I haven't been able to check its accuracy.) The...</summary>
        <author>
            <name>Nancy Friedman</name>
        </author>
        <category scheme="http://www.sixapart.com/ns/types#category" term="Cars" />
        <category scheme="http://www.sixapart.com/ns/types#category" term="Fashion" />
        <category scheme="http://www.sixapart.com/ns/types#category" term="Naming" />
        <category scheme="http://www.sixapart.com/ns/types#category" term="Real Estate" />
        <category scheme="http://www.sixapart.com/ns/types#category" term="Wine &amp; Spirits" />
        
        
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<div xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><p>Brand names come from myriad sources. Here are some names with unusual provenances:</p>


<ul>
<li><strong>HaaT</strong>, a clothing line designed by Issey Miyake protegée Makiko Minagawa, is said to take its name from a Sanskrit word meaning "village market." (That's the company's story; I haven't been able to check its accuracy.) The quirky capitalization, of course, is pure Brand-ese.  Minagawa was Miyake's textile director for 30 years before launching HaaT in 2000, and her skill is evident in the innovative fabrics and subtle sculptural quality of her garments. They have a global-village-market quality, too: each collection is inspired by a different world culture. As a name, HaaT suggests "hot" ... although the official story is that it "sounds like <em>heart</em>." Well, if you have <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhotic_and_non-rhotic_accents" target="_blank">a non-rhotic accent</a>. I couldn't find a HaaT website, but I did see the clothing at the San Francisco Saks Fifth Avenue store.* And I dug up <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhotic_and_non-rhotic_accents" target="_blank">an interesting July 2006 article</a> in the Honolulu Advertiser. And I found this photo on the <a href="http://www.isseymiyake.co.jp/en/news/2009/01/spring_summer_2009_start_haat.html" target="_blank">Issey Miyake</a> main website, which shows—on the left; you'll have to squint a bit—some of the clothes and the inventive rendering of the HaaT logo:</li>
</ul>
<p style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://nancyfriedman.typepad.com/.a/6a00d8341c4f9453ef012875fbc536970c-popup" onclick="window.open( this.href, '_blank', 'width=640,height=480,scrollbars=no,resizable=no,toolbar=no,directories=no,location=no,menubar=no,status=no,left=0,top=0' ); return false"><img alt="HA_SS2009LAUNCH" class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00d8341c4f9453ef012875fbc536970c " src="http://nancyfriedman.typepad.com/.a/6a00d8341c4f9453ef012875fbc536970c-320wi" style="display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" /></a><em><strong><span style="font-size: 11px;">Click to enlarge.</span></strong></em></p><ul>
<li><strong><a href="http://www.breggo.com" target="_blank">Breggo Cellars</a></strong>
is a winery on a former sheep ranch in California's Anderson Valley,
just north of Boonville. In the 19th century, Boonville was so isolated
that it developed its own folk language, Boontling, based on English,
Gaelic, Spanish, and the local Indian language, Pomoan. <em>Breggo</em>, the Boontling word for "sheep," comes from Spanish <em>borrego</em>, a yearling lamb. (<em>Borrego</em> also turns up in <a href="http://www.parks.ca.gov/?page_id=638" target="_blank">Anza-Borrego Desert State Park</a>, near San Diego, and in the <a href="http://www.kia.com/#/borrego/explore/?cid=sem&amp;ppc=y" target="_blank">Kia Borrego</a>,
"a new kind of luxury SUV." Perfect for the pastor and his flock.) As
far as I can tell, Breggo Cellars is the only Boontling brand name in
existence. Want to learn basic Boontling? Here's <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boontling" target="_blank">a vocabulary list</a>.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>Most of <a href="http://www.chicagotribune.com/classified/realestate/chi-subdivision-names_chomes_112nov27,0,7231114.story" target="_blank">this <em>Chicago Tribune</em> article about real-estate naming</a> is stale news. ("You must name the subdivision after at least two things you have removed," jokes real estate consultant Steve Hovney. Haha.) But there are surprises in the last few grafs. X/O, a condo development in Chicago's South Loop, stands for "eXtraOrdinary," according to its builder. Model homes in a Joliet subdivision are named for female historical figures: Aldrich, Murdock, and Webster. (No further explanation given.) And in Mokena, Flaherty Homes went for the <em>awwww</em> factor: models are named after the owners' grandchildren. They include the Caellin, the Liam, and the Siobhan.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
</ul>
<p>__</p><p>* <span style="font-size: 11px;">Don't bother to search the <a href="http://www.saksfifthavenue.com" target="_blank">Saks site</a>; you won't find it. A salesperson told me that only the San Francisco Saks carries the line, which is so stunning and unusual it literally stopped me in my tracks as I rounded a corner to the escalator.
I lingered long enough to try on a soft chocolate-brown knitted vest with <em>five </em>head-size openings and a drawstring on one side. It was
fabulous. Trust me.</span></p></div>
</content>


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    <entry>
        <title>Uncalled For</title>
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        <id>tag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a00d8341c4f9453ef0120a6f07aeb970b</id>
        <published>2009-12-01T12:00:10-08:00</published>
        <updated>2009-12-01T12:03:09-08:00</updated>
        <summary>In Monday's New York Times, business columnist Stuart Elliott asked 20 skeptical questions about advertising, marketing, and media. My favorite:Did the copywriters who created an ad for the Chrysler Town and Country minivan sold by the Chrysler Group realize that when they described the “DVD entertainment system at no extra...</summary>
        <author>
            <name>Nancy Friedman</name>
        </author>
        <category scheme="http://www.sixapart.com/ns/types#category" term="Advertising" />
        <category scheme="http://www.sixapart.com/ns/types#category" term="Cars" />
        <category scheme="http://www.sixapart.com/ns/types#category" term="Television" />
        <category scheme="http://www.sixapart.com/ns/types#category" term="They Said WHAT???" />
        <category scheme="http://www.sixapart.com/ns/types#category" term="Words" />
        
        
<content type="xhtml" xml:lang="en-US" xml:base="http://nancyfriedman.typepad.com/away_with_words/">
<div xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><p>In Monday's <em>New York Times</em>, business columnist Stuart Elliott asked <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/30/business/media/30adco.html?_r=1&amp;ref=business" target="_blank">20 skeptical questions </a>about advertising, marketing, and media.</p><p>My favorite:</p><blockquote><span style="color: #033d21;">Did the copywriters who created an ad for the Chrysler Town and Country minivan sold by the Chrysler Group realize that when
they described the “DVD entertainment system at no extra charge” and
extended maintenance plan as “wonderfully gratuitous,” that the word
“gratuitous” can mean not called for or unwarranted as well as giving
unearned or free?</span></blockquote><p>Mr. Elliott's own copy could benefit from another edit pass, but his point manages to glimmer through the murky syntax. "Gratuitous" as a four-syllable synonym for "free" is a gratuitous substitution.</p>I nominate Chrysler's agency for a <a href="http://nancyfriedman.typepad.com/away_with_words/2009/11/doe.html" target="_blank">Bucket of Does</a> Award.</div>
</content>


    <feedburner:origLink>http://nancyfriedman.typepad.com/away_with_words/2009/12/uncalled-for.html</feedburner:origLink></entry>
    <entry>
        <title>Word of the Week: Fascinator</title>
        <link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/typepad/NancyFriedman/away_with_words/~3/Mi5qRRVGscs/word-of-the-week-fascinator.html" />
        <link rel="replies" type="text/html" href="http://nancyfriedman.typepad.com/away_with_words/2009/11/word-of-the-week-fascinator.html" thr:count="3" thr:updated="2009-12-01T12:46:49-08:00" />
        <id>tag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a00d8341c4f9453ef012875eea6fe970c</id>
        <published>2009-11-30T10:14:29-08:00</published>
        <updated>2009-11-30T10:14:11-08:00</updated>
        <summary>Fascinator: A whimsical, decorative headpiece for a woman: less than a hat, more than a barrette. Fascinators are frequently fashioned from feathers, sequins, or flowers. "Fascinator" shares an etmology with "fascinate": Latin fascināre, to cast a spell on. The noun has long had an association with headgear: In the 19th...</summary>
        <author>
            <name>Nancy Friedman</name>
        </author>
        <category scheme="http://www.sixapart.com/ns/types#category" term="Fashion" />
        <category scheme="http://www.sixapart.com/ns/types#category" term="Word of the Week" />
        
        
<content type="xhtml" xml:lang="en-US" xml:base="http://nancyfriedman.typepad.com/away_with_words/">
<div xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><p><strong><a href="http://nancyfriedman.typepad.com/.a/6a00d8341c4f9453ef0120a6ec74bf970b-popup" onclick="window.open( this.href, '_blank', 'width=640,height=480,scrollbars=no,resizable=no,toolbar=no,directories=no,location=no,menubar=no,status=no,left=0,top=0' ); return false" style="float: left;"><img alt="Turquoise facinator 2_small" class="asset asset-image at-xid-6a00d8341c4f9453ef0120a6ec74bf970b " src="http://nancyfriedman.typepad.com/.a/6a00d8341c4f9453ef0120a6ec74bf970b-320wi" style="margin: 0px 5px 5px 0px;" /></a> Fascinator</strong>: A whimsical, decorative headpiece for a woman: less than a hat, more than a barrette. Fascinators are frequently fashioned from feathers, sequins, or flowers.</p>

<p>"Fascinator" shares an etmology with "fascinate": Latin <span style="font-family: Georgia;"><em>fascināre</em>, to cast a spell on. The noun has long had an association with headgear: In the 19th and early 20th centuries a fascinator was a lightweight knitted or crocheted headscarf, as alluded to in the 1904 novel <em><a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/21243" target="_blank">The Madigans</a></em>: "</span>She sat crocheting what she called a fascinator, her white bone needle moving harmoniously in and out of the blue wool." (Hat tip—or fascinator nod—to <a href="http://www.wordnik.com/words/fascinator" target="_blank">Wordnik</a>.) </p><p>At some point in the mid-20th century "fascinator" slipped out of use ... and then reappeared with a new meaning. Here's Elaine Higgleton, editorial director of the Collins Language Division, explaining the shift in <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/rn/linguafranca/stories/2008/2405612.htm" target="_blank">a November 2008 interview </a>with Australia's ABC Radio National:</p><blockquote><span style="color: #033d21;">I don't know if <em>fascinator</em>'s made a comeback in Australia but
it's originally a very fine or lacy wool or lace head-shawl that a lady
might wear over her head going out in the evening with her evening
clothes. So it's something fine that you wear on your head. And as a
word, that had pretty much fallen out of use by about 1969, the late
1960s, early 1970s. But it's made a real comeback in the last couple of
years, because <em>fascinator</em> is the term that's now being used
to describe the little, tiny headpieces that a woman might wear at
something like a wedding, or if she goes to the races. They're made out
of lace with feathers and flowers. Quite elaborate confections. Very
delicate and frivolous-looking. And that's an example of a word that
had a very valuable use, that kind of died away—people didn't use the
word for anything—and it's been resurrected with a slightly new
meaning. So it's usage has been extended now to still mean something
that women wear on their heads that's fine and delicate, but it's not a
shawl anymore; it's more of a hat-like confection.</span></blockquote><p>My own research revealed that <em>fascinator</em> is very much in use (and in vogue) Down Under as well as in the U.K. and North America, where the craft revival and the <a href="http://nancyfriedman.typepad.com/away_with_words/2008/05/word-of-the-w-1.html" target="_blank">steampunk</a> trend have accelerated its acceptance. I found almost 12,000 results when I searched for "fascinator" on the craft site <a href="http://www.etsy.com/search_results.php?search_type=handmade&amp;search_query=fascinator" target="_blank">Etsy</a>. The Scottish site <a href="http://lavendermoon.co.uk/" target="_blank">Lavender Moon</a>, where I found the image at the top of this post, sells nothing but fascinators <span style="color: #111111;">"for weddings, christenings, a day at the races and 
 cocktail or garden parties."  </span></p><p /></div>
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