Election Day...

Pick your favorite, you Americans you:



And that's about all I have to say about that. For today, at least.

Genericization? Is that even a word? Hm...

There are a number of brand names that have become so big as to be inducted in our language as actual nouns. You know some of them: we use "escalator" for any sort of lifty-staircase-thingy, "Kleenex" for any brand of facial tissue, and quite a few of us (when I was a kid, anyway) use "Coke" to refer to any ol' flavor or brand of soft drink.

I was curious to find out what some of the others might be. Across the pond, "Hoover" is still used as a verb for vacuuming: "I can't hear you--I'm Hoovering!" But what other things might I be saying in common parlance that belong to someone? If you're curious, here's a list from Wikipedia that might satiate your curiosity.

Now I'm going to go take a couple of asprin and call you on my touch-tone phone in the morning. Not to slap a Band Aid on it or anything.

That sign on the freeway (Part 1 of 4)...

This isn't the exact sign I pass on my morning commute to work--mine has a different image--but the layout and text are the same:



Spark a reaction for you? It certainly did for my eleven year old son. He saw the sign on our way to the theater (sorry for the shameless plug, but only two weeks left!). As we passed it, he grew very concerned and said with a grieving tone in his voice, "That's really sad." Then there was a long pause before he asked, "What is autism?"

We live in a culture of fear. Don't believe me? Turn on the news, or open a periodical. All we see and hear is geared to frighten us--the latest war, the latest criminal activity in our back yard, the latest increase in something scary or decrease in something good. And all stuff we have no control over. What could be more terrifying than an endless litany of life-ending events which pound into our ears and hearts the many tragic, unavoidable, senseless ways we or (preferentially, if you listen to the media) someone we love could suddenly die?

It's even in our e-mail inbox. How many times over the last year alone have you been regaled by some well-meaning associate, friend or family member with a message telling you about the cancer caused by reusing a plastic water bottle? Or the dangers of walking to your car at the mall by yourself? Or the famous I-woke-up-and-those-bastards-stole-my-kidney story? (Watch this if you haven't seen it yet.)

There is so much of this around, it has a name: Scarelore. A subdivision of the definition of "Urban Legend", it looks like this:

"Urban legends are narratives which put our fears and concerns into the form of stories or are tales which we use to confirm the rightness of our world view. As cautionary tales they warn us against engaging in risky behaviors by pointing out what has supposedly happened to others who did what we might be tempted to try. Other legends confirm our belief that it's a big, bad world out there, one awash with crazed killers, lurking terrorists, unscrupulous companies out to make a buck at any cost, and a government that doesn't give a damn." (from Snopes.com, one of the best debunkers on the net.)

Sure, there is a small tagline on the bottom of the billboard that references somewhere you might "learn the signs". But the sign inspires fear and shock to get a reaction out of us: "How sad, Dad. Whatever can we do?!?" Is there no other way to communicate any more? Do we have to perpetuate this in our world, even for (especially for) a cause as good as this one? It makes me sad and frustrated all at the same time.

to be continued...

Time to fire the copy editor...

Okay, I saw this and had to share:



I'd like to be a REALLY BIG loser, Alex. Wait, if I'm a really big loser, won't I stop being really big? And is being thin being a loser? If so, why lose weight at all? ummmm...there are multiple ways to read into this copy, and none of them support the product the ad is trying to sell.

Perhaps the copy writer was unintentionally saying what most of us know to be true already: image is not in any way connected to your weight. Health, maybe, but this ad is clearly not targeting those with health issues. We are going for the brunette coed look. (Perhaps they could use the same stock photo for their anti-aging cream?)

I'm going to have one of these just out of spite.