The Tin Lizard

Talking Drugs

An entire new lexicon has come to light over the past ten years.   Do you recognize the following words?

Saxaglyptin
Desvenlafaxine
Bevacuzumab
Ibandronate
Tadalafil
Atorvastatin
Terbenafine
Esomeprazole

They may look like the list of words for the next National Spelling Bee (and perhaps they are) but in fact, they're all drug names, or more properly, chemical compounds.   Even in the 1950s we would occasionally hear a few such terms:  acetosalicylic acid, for example, or ibuprofen, which came along slightly later. 

But as drug manufacturers have introduced more and more new medicines, we've all seen the trend toward advertising them to the public, too -- "ask your doctor if [product name] is right for you!"  And those ads almost always specify the name of the actual drug, as well as the brand name. 

For the linguist, songwriter, or poet, these new words represent an untapped reservoir of material.  Certain ones spark odd associations, or conjure up wondrous images.  For example:

Fluoxetine.  It sounds as if it might describe a rheumy-eyed bovine with muscle pain and mild nausea.  Let's hope they don't use the fluox's tissues to grow the medicine in.

Onglyza.  That's a brand name, not a chemical name, but for me it raises the image of a big fat slug.  Or, if slugs have names and engage in races, maybe slug spectators on the sidelines shout out "On, Glyza!"  or "C'mon Slymeristin!"

Clopidogrel.  This is one of the earliest of these I noticed.  I believe it refers to bad poetry written by a horse. But the very best I have found is:

Rosiglitazone.  Wow.  Makes you think of shimmery pink things, or some hazy nirvana-like state.  Sixties druggie to his pal: "Whoa, man, why'd you go and wake me up?  I was just reachin' the rosiglitazone! Bummer!"  Or a wonderful pinkish, sparkly skyline, maybe with a unicorn standing in the foreground.

We should thank Big Pharma for making life so interesting.

The Newspaper Reader's Role: The Ugly

To continue my musing from yesterday about the Washington Post's page for reader letters.... Another very common topic of letter-writers is grammar.  They'll accuse the Post of having ignored one or another tenet of usage according to one or another usage "expert."  In fact, there are a lot of usage experts, ranging from Fowler, the Evanses, and Merriam-Webster, to Dave Barry's old "Mr. Language Person" persona.  They often express differing views on the same issues of correct usage, and their opinions also change over time, as the language does.

It's surpising how often the language and grammar mavens, who consider themselves more knowledgeable about the English language than a bunch of professional writers, get it wrong, or only half-right.  But right or wrong, they hold their views with tenacity, and they nearly always approach apoplexy when they encounter what they view as errors.  So, it can get ugly.  

A case in point this week was the gent who "nearly choked" on his breakfast over the "revolting" (my emphasis) grammar (he means usage) of the simple word "couple."  "Couple," according to this language policeman, must always be followed by "of."  So such phrases as "a couple weeks" or "a couple hundred" are taboo. 

Well, yes and no.  I considered what I generally hear people saying.  Seldom do you hear "a couple fools," or "a couple books;" but I think I hear people say "a couple months" about as often as "a couple of months" - both sound OK to my ear.  With numbers, to say "a couple of hundred" sounds completely foreign.  Don't we all say "a couple hundred?"   After checking a couple of "usage guides," I found that was exactly the case - the "of" gets dropped frequently if it is followed by a number or a noun of time. 

In effect, that's the use of "couple" as an adjective rather than a noun.  Mr. Letter-Man thunders emphatically that "couple is a noun, not an adjective," but that's open to question.  "Couple" has been used adjectivally for at least a couple [of?] hundred years and though that's considered colloquial usage, in fact any use of "couple" itself, with or without "of," is informal -- and as we know, informal speech often changes. 

There doesn't seem to be much use in exhausting ourselves trying to police the spoken language. It will do what it will do.  But if this particular grammarian wants to persist in his point, could he perhaps offer a couple of more examples?

The Newspaper Reader's Role: The Bad

I'm always intrigued by the page the Washington Post calls "Free for All," which runs in the paper on Saturdays.  Here's where readers get a chance to react to stories they've seen/read in the paper.  Occasionally, readers can make a serious and valid point, such as correcting a factual matter, or pointing out a different angle.  There was one such case yesterday.

More often, though -- and this is the entertaining part -- the letter-writers seem unwittingly comic in their insularity or grandiose in their pettiness, writing in mainly to complain that their tiny little ox got gored.  Probably the most common thread is about coverage: "Why did you put the World Cup on page 1 of the sports section, when obviously the finals of the Southern Maryland Women's Table Tennis Tournament were so much more important?"   That sort of thing.   

Here's my contribution to the genre:  "Why does the Post continue to print this kind of tripe when space in the paper is constantly decreasing?  Isn't there something newsier going on?"

Another common topic in these letters is grammar and usage; there's a seemingly endless supply of readers out there who missed their calling as English teachers (or perhaps are English teachers now retired).  See tomorrow's post for more on this.

WD-40, The Antithesis Of Duct Tape

The folks at WD-40 Company, who produce the well-known product called WD-40 (go figure!) have decided to ballyhoo the longevity of their brand by putting out a twin pack that will contain one can with today's modern label, and another with the original one from the 1950's.  Credit goes to the Washington Post for this photo, though I assume the same can be found at the WD-40 website (which happens to be www.WD40.com -- again, go figure! -- although the company does have other products):

WD-40 is a great product that I would recommend to anyone.  I use it occasionally for lubrication, but more often for rust prevention.  But if you don't already own one or more cans, you must have been living on Mars for most of your adult life.  It's ubiquitous and, as the article above points out, a lot like like duct tape in being the quick-fix for many household problems.  Hold it together with duct tape, loosen it up with WD-40.

Which brings us to the reason for the big ad campaign with its special double-pack. The company doesn't point to any special anniversary, nor any other reason for doing the promotion at this time.  Nostalgia is a fine thing too, if it doesn't get out of hand, but I assume the real motivation behind the double-pack business is to push more product into the market.  That goes without saying; that's the purpose of any advertising campaign, but I'm guessing WD-40's problem is special and nearly unique.  The company is a victim of its own success -- if everybody already has your product, how do you sell more of it?  The double pack is one way (maybe).  It will be interesting to see how the effort works out.

But by all means, if you're getting low, go out and get yourself a replacement can.  And let me know how that "smart straw" works.  The advantage is supposed to be that it won't get lost because it's permanently attached, but I'm leery because I've found that too often, plastic sprayers on the top of cans and bottles stop working long before the product inside has been used up.

Packaging Silliness

Today I offer just a couple more examples of unnecessarily wasteful packaging for ordinary products.

There seems to be a tendency to put fabric items, including some clothing I've seen and now these pillowcases (below) into heavy plastic zippered pouches.  I suppose, to a marketer's eye, this turns them from ordinary goods into "luxury" goods.  But it is completely unnecessary.  These packets are too small to contain anything else, and I'm pretty sure I'm not going too far out on a limb if I say that most people aren't going to wash their pillowcases, fold them up, and stuff them back into these pouches.  So they're just going to be tossed out.

 

A similar case is the HP ink cartridges shown below.  HP can be credited with making it easy to recycle their used cartridges.  They have even "upgraded" the packaging shown below (it now carries one of those "recyclable" emblems, whereas it didn't before).  But the fact remains that the cartridges inside this packaging are less than half the size of the package itself.  Recyclable is good, but since only a small percentage of these packages will ever be recycled, why do we put up with this kind of overkill?  

A Hot-Weather Product

The heat wave that peaked yesterday in much of the U.S. (I got a reading of 104 degrees in western Massachusetts) brings to mind lots of hot-weather related images and topics.

For example, how about reaching back in time to Harry Belafonte and that song he used to do about harvesting those bananas?  Definitely a heat-wave image.  Many people used to wonder about the refrain of that song... "day-o, day-o."  Why would banana workers use those particular syllables?  I think the answer lies in another hot-weather association:  They were probably really singing "deo, deo"  --not god, but just the Caribbean-accented first part of the word "de-o-dorant."  (I'm sure the Gillette company would agree, if they thought about it.)

One recent trend in the deodorant industry (men's anyway) has been the switch from "deodorant" to "anti-perspirant."  The former product was intended just to cover up any underarm odor with heavy perfume; the latter is designed to stop you from perspiring at all.  That's why the anti-perspirant canister (in photo) doesn't have the caption "smells great all day" that the other one does. 

For a while, after the anti-perspirant version was introduced, you could buy either, but it's becoming increasing difficult to find old-fashioned "deodorant" these days.  It just isn't trendy, and manufacturers, I'm sure, are looking to close down this legacy product line and push us into the new stuff.  And that's why the AP version has the misleading tag "deodorant" written under "anti-perspirant."  Webster's take note: Deodorant is being redefined!  (Side note: At the same time, it's becoming more costly -- the new high-tech AP is 3.00 ounces, the old stuff, 3.25.) 

Personally, though I was never a huge fan of the overwhelming perfume approach, I don't care much for the new version.  It has the look and consistency of lard (which makes great pie crusts but lacks appeal for use on my body).  It also leaves me feeling ... dry, yes, but the driness is as if I had spread a layer of superglue, or spackling, under my arms.  Which, come to think of it, is probably exactly what's going on.

More important, though, is that the "convenience" of AP over deodorant may have unintended health consequences.  The whole concept of "anti-perspirant" is wrongheaded, maybe even dangerous.  Yes, we all "perspire."  Some of us even "sweat."  And, in polite western society, most of us see that as a problem that we try to cover up.  But it's our body's natural reaction to overheating, just as dogs stick out their tongues and pant for the same reason.  So, if we decide to stop ourselves from sweating (er, "perspiring,"), aren't we going to find out in five or ten years that that practice is causing cancer, giving us heart attacks, or affecting our brains in some way?

In general, I just don't think it's a good idea to try to shut down the body's natural reactions.  My bottom line is this: If somebody started marketing a product to apply to your sphincter, and called it "anti-excretant," would you USE IT?  Good luck with that.  I believe I'll stick with the deodorant, as long as I can still get it.

  

Fourth Of July Tradition

One of the traditions I recall from my own family, years ago, was that everybody had an American flag and displayed it in front of the house on certain days -- Flag Day, Memorial Day, Veterans Day, and especially of course, Independence Day, aka The Fourth of July.

 

We still do that now (see above), but I don't see evidence that a lot of people do anymore.  Too bad.  It's a nice tradition, and meaningful in a low-key way.

 

Environmental Cleanup

The tale of the tanker A Whale is an interesting one.  The giant ship has been modified to work as a super-sized oil skimmer and has arrived in the Gulf, ready to go to work.  The people of the Gulf, in fact all of us in the U.S., at BP, and around the Caribbean rim, ought to be grateful for the idea and action of the ship's Taiwanese owner.

This is good news, overall.  Let's hope it works.  But even if it doesn't work quite as advertised, it seems almost certain to contribute significantly to mitigating the effects of the disaster.

So I have to agree with the quoted "local officials," including Louisiana Governor Jindal, who question why the ship wasn't put into immediate operation.  Technically, it was because the EPA "hadn't signed off" on the quality of the water A Whale would pump back into the Gulf. 

But isn't this enough of an emergency that the EPA could suspend rules that weren't designed for this kind of problem anyway?  Couldn't the White House and Congress by now have ginned up emergency legislation that would make this step and others possible?  Possibly man-in-charge Thad Allen could be given authority to order such things at his discretion.

After all, it's hard to see how simply taking in polluted seawater and discharging it again could possibly make it worse than it already is.  Even if it didn't remove a drop of oil!

(Note: This item has been cross-posted on "Morning Fog" - www.morning-fog.com)

Dumb Packaging

Remember when milk and some other products came in those ridiculous waxed cartons?  You had to pull open the top somehow, spread the two wings on one side of the top, and of course they never pulled back far enough to let you take Step Two, which was to pull out to point that would serve as a pour spout.  Then, since that rarely produced an actual opening to pour the milk through, you'd usually have to separate two layers of stuck-together cardboard.  That would give you a nice raggedy edge of cardboard to pour your milk over. 

This was 1950s packaging (it must have seemed modern at the time) that survived, for some reason, well into the 20th century but finally met its demise, in favor of plastic jugs with screw-lid pourers, or perhaps the same wax cartons but with screw-lid pourers, in about 1999.

Didn't it?  No, apparently not.  Some idiots are still putting their wares in these ridiculous cartons, and here's the evidence: