Really?

During the Fall of 1941, several New York City newspapers reported on their sports pages the success of the Plainfield Teachers College football team. On successive weeks Plainfield defeated Winona 27-3, Randolph Tech 35-0, and Ingersoll 13-0. Plainfield was led by a phenomenal halfback named John Chung, whose feats were relayed to the papers by a press agent named Jerry Croyden.

Alas, truth be told, there was no John Chung—or Jerry Croyden, either. Or even a Plainfield Teachers College. It was all an invention of Morris Neuburger, a stock broker. In other words, it was all a hoax.(1)

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Three years earlier, a truly momentous hoax took place.

On the evening of October 30, 1938, radio listeners across the U.S. heard a startling report of mysterious creatures and terrifying war machines moving toward New York City. But the hair-raising broadcast was not a real news bulletin—it was Orson Welles' adaptation of the H. G. Wells classic "The War of the Worlds.”(2)

Welles’ Mercury Theater program was formulated as a simulacrum of a true emergency broadcast. And listeners were fooled and some even panicked about a Martian attack in New Jersey. 

The Martian invasion broadcast stands as the premier radio hoax.

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Last weekend, enthusiasts gathered at Scotland’s Loch Ness to participate in what organizers billed “as the largest organized ‘Nessie’ hunt for 50 years.”(3)

The serious “Nessie” hunters 

came armed with high-tech help: sonars for mapping the lake bed, thermal-imaging drones for scanning the surface and hydrophones to hear strange sounds from the depths.

Perhaps most of them hoped to see for themselves the monster which was supposedly captured in a famous photograph in 1934 attributed to a London doctor (it is known as the “surgeon’s photograph”).

[T]he photo shows a long-necked creature with a small head rising from the lake.(4)

Unfortunately for true believers, the photograph is not that of a water monster but of a fabrication made of a plastic wood head grafted onto the conning tower of a toy submarine. 

In other words, a hoax.

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“The climate change agenda is a hoax … The reality is more people are dying of bad climate change policies than they are of actual climate change.”

— Vivek Ramaswamy

Leaving aside the fact that the words were spoken by the most obnoxious personage newly sprouted in the GOP nomination derby, let us examine the language and the content of the above statement.

First off, there is the matter of evidence. Where is there proof that “more people are dying of bad climate change policies than they are of actual climate change”? What are those “bad climate change policies” and how have they contributed to the death of many people? And how has Ramaswamy ascertained the number of alleged climate change policy deaths? What standards of proof were involved? 

I think you can guess the answers.

Now for the language. What is it with the word “agenda”? Rightwingers love to scare people with that alleged bogey word. You must have heard about the Gay Agenda, the Trans Agenda, and lord knows how many other Agendas out there. 

I always associate an agenda with a meeting—it’s the list of what will be discussed and acted upon. So I wonder where did the meeting take place that the nefarious Agenda was part of? Specifically, where was the “climate change agenda” drawn up? (And what are its particulars?)

But the most significant idiocy of Ramaswamy’s rant is the claim that the “climate change agenda” is a hoax.

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What have we learned about hoaxes from the discussions of Plainfield Teachers College, Welles’ “War of the Worlds,” and the Loch Ness monster photograph? They were are all deliberate attempts to deceive the public. I’ll say it again: Hoaxes are deliberate; they are not accidents, errors, or unwitting outcomes. But for Ramaswamy, “hoax” is just another scare word (like “agenda”) to stir the bowels of the credulous fools who follow him.

Of course, if young Vivek can produce evidence that some maleficent cabal has in fact deliberately manufactured the “climate change agenda” as a fake-fact cocktail, a “hoax" in other words, then I take back every thing I said here and will vote for him for president.(5)

***

(1) Reported in The New Yorker, Nov. 29, 1941.

(2)  https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/infamous-war-worlds-radio-broadcast-was-magnificent-fluke-180955180/  

(3)  https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/loch-ness-monster-hunt-largest-decades-rcna102002

(4)  https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/lochness/legend3.html

(5)  Now, that wouldn't be a hoax, would it?

Language Follies 6

Free Advice to Donald Trump’s 18 co-defendants: 

Hire a lawyer who has Fani Willis on speed dial.

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Tautology of the Day:

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Today’s Orwell Award goes to Louisiana State Trooper Jacob Brown.

Brown beat Aaron Bowman 18 times with a flashlight. Bowman sustained a broken jaw, broken ribs, and a gash to his head. 

Brown defended his actions as “pain compliance.”

A Louisiana jury acquitted him.(1)

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Lamest Excuse of the Day

“Trump-supporting Ohio lawyer admits voting twice in past elections: 'Accidents do happen’”(2)

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The All-Purpose Deflection:

During World War II, the Nazis occupied the British Channel Islands. 

An official government inquiry into the full horrors of the Nazi occupation on Alderney . . . has vowed to investigate all new evidence of atrocities, including the grisly Water Lane tunnels where, it is claimed, huge numbers of slave labourers died in their making.(3)

However, not every Alderney resident welcomes the new inquiry:

Trevor Davenport, the director of Alderney’s museum, seethes when the Observer raises the issue at his home, a few fields from one of the island’s four Nazi camps. Pointing to the fact that just eight Jews are officially recorded as dying on Alderney, Davenport said linking the Holocaust to Alderney is a “step too far”.

And he accuses Sir Eric Pickles, the UK’s Holocaust envoy leading the inquiry, of “wokeism”.

“Woke,” “Wokeism”?

I think the definition of these terms is a simple one:

It is whatever seems to upset your apple cart.

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Pretentious? Moi? Division

I have just stumbled upon the news that Pepsi-Cola is going through a re-branding. I was quite surprised, considering that Pepsi spent a million dollars decade-and-a-half ago to re-brand itself. 

The recipient of the million bucks, the Arnell Group spouted the following explanation of its efforts:

The vocabulary of truth and simplicity is a reoccurring phenomena in the brand's history. It communicates the brand in a timeless manner and with an expression of clarity. Pepsi BREATHTAKING builds on this knowledge. True innovation always begins by investigating the historic path. Going back-to-the-roots moves the brand forward as it changes the trajectory of the future.(4)

Arnell Group evoked Descartes, the Golden Ratio, and the "Hindu tradition of numerical harmony as spatial organizer.” And claimed that "energy fields are in balance.”

Alas, the energy field must have gotten out of whack. 

The “Pepsi” in the logo “is decoupled from the globe,” . . . Todd Kaplan, Pepsi’s chief marketing officer [noted recently]. “It’s this lowercase, italicized font, the blue is a little bit muted … it doesn’t exude that confidence and energy that the brand really represents.”

Pepsi, Kaplan said, is “a bold and confident brand,” one that stands for “unapologetic enjoyment.” The current logo, with its lower-case “pepsi” standing shyly away from that laid-back globe? Not very bold, not very confident.(5)

And I bet you thought it was all about fizzy sugar water in a can.

*

Re-branding continues apace across the Atlantic as well. 

Aston Villa football club has moved its lion. The beast used to face left on a shield; for the new season it faces right on a circle. 

The new crest’s designers  

say it’s about “reigniting authentic brand assets” and creating a new “flexible, characterful, rich brand identity”. The lion has changed direction to signify “the progressive, forward-facing nature of the club”.(6)

Villa lost 5 - 1 in its opening game of the season. 

***

(1) https://www.npr.org/2023/08/03/1191900887/louisiana-trooper-aquitted-jacob-brown-aaron-bowman-civil-rights

(2) https://www.rawstory.com/trump-supporter-voter-fraud-2662274404/?utm_source=123456&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=15144

(3) https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/aug/13/the-holocaust-happened-on-british-soil-inquiry-into-nazi-camps-creates-bitter-divide-on-alderney?utm_term=64d87f751e359bc20a6379639a895b18&utm_campaign=GuardianTodayUK&utm_source=esp&utm_medium=Email&CMP=GTUK_email

(4) https://www.cbsnews.com/news/pepsis-nonsensical-logo-redesign-document-1-million-for-this/

(5) https://www.cnn.com/2023/03/28/business/pepsi-new-logo/index.html

(6) https://www.theguardian.com/football/2023/aug/11/new-refs-new-kits-and-a-clampdown-on-clowning-whats-new-this-season

Language Follies 5

I was going to open this post with another snarky remark about how nice it is to have a product that is unashamedly claiming to be what it is. In this case, avocado. 

However, I have had second thoughts. I definitely prefer to have avocados made into avocados than to have grass and weeds made into some other green stuff. So let’s hear it for the real thing. (And by the way, has anybody here seen an imitation crab in nature?)

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While we’re lingering in the grocery aisles, consider the branding efforts that some emporia are exerting. Shop-Rite has re-labeled many of their products “Bowl & Basket.” Shop-Rite claims that those products come “From our Bowl to your Basket.” Here is part of an explanation given by the branding company that thought the thing up:

The ampersand at the center of Bowl & Basket is only a starting point for moments of joy. This point of connection extends the brand purpose of togetherness beyond the name to make many quality combinations such as: Milk & Cereal, Saturday & Pajamas, Friends & Family, Bowl & Basket.*

“Saturdays & Pajamas”? It is to laugh.

I wonder what bowl that tilapia came out of.

*

Still on the ampersand track, what would you say is the meaning behind “Good & Gather”? 

If I didn’t already know the answer, I would unhesitatingly assume that I was witnessing a meeting of the Society of Friends, AKA, the Quakers. Here’s a clue:

That’s right; it’s a label for products sold at Target. Nothing holy about it.

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How many words are there in the English language? There is no definitive answer to that question as the language keeps growing. One starting point might be Webster's Third New International Dictionary, Unabridged, which together with its 1993 Addenda Section, includes some 470,000 entries.** 

Despite being in my ninth decade, I am still taken aback when I suddenly come upon a word that seems to have sprung up like Topsy. Past words that seemed to ambush me from out of nowhere included cholesterol, tofu, and tapas. Most recently, I can’t seem to escape the word slider used as a description for a hamburger seriously deficient in ingredients. No-one online has a clue as to the origin of its present ubiquitousness. 

Having been in the education racket for so much of my life, I thought I knew just about most of the terminology of the profession. All of a sudden, though, I have been inundated with references to rising seniors. Where in hell did that term come from? And if some seniors are “rising” does that mean others are declining? 

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I was going to post a screed about so-called Street Fashion (or Streetwear), but I just learned that its foremost components are “jeans, T-shirts, baseball caps, and sneakers.”***

That’s me: Mr. Street Fashion.

***

*  https://thedieline.com/blog/2020/7/13/bowl--basket

**  https://wordcounter.io/blog/how-many-words-are-in-the-english-language

***https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streetwear#:~:text=Streetwear%20is%20a%20style%20of,skateboarding%20and%20Japanese%20street%20fashion.