The Tin Lizard

Awggious - Getting Even With France

Some fast-food joint (it may be Subway) is now touting "awggious" dressings, or sauce, or whatnot, in its preparations.   Not too long ago, I remember reading a menu that offered the option of "extra awggious."   

This new word is pronounced to rhyme with "nauseous."   Actually, though, it seems they really mean "au jus," a culinary term from French that might be translated as "with pot-liquor."  

The French helped us escape British taxation back in the late eighteenth century.  We've treated them rather back-handedly since then, perhaps because at the time of the revolution, we were basically Englishmen, and we shared the English disdain of things French.  So they helped, but it didn't take us long to take revenge on them for their help.  

I don't mean revenge like the French Revolution, which may have had some roots in common with our own revolution, but which we can't claim as something we brought about.

No, I mean the revenge that "awggious" brings to mind...our seemingly willful mispronunciation of most French words that we borrow into American English.  I've been trying to think of a French word or phrase we use that gets pronounced in a way that a Frenchman (or Frenchwoman) would recognize. 

Chaise longue?  Lingerie?  Au jus?  Déjà vu?   Coup de grâce?  No way! Of course there are a few:   "Cuisine" works out pretty well, and Miss Piggy's "Moi?" sounds like the real thing.   But doesn't that just mean we have to work a little harder at it?  

 

Very Adjustable "Purpose Chair"

I just read in the Indianapolis Star (not one of my usual sources, I confess, but when in Indianapolis, do as the Indianapollonians do...) about a new office chair design by Markus Koepke for the HON company.  It's called the "Purpose Chair," although "purpose chair" seems to be a generic term for many chairs designed for specific applications.

Its claim to fame is that it supposedly automatically adjusts itself (except for an initial height setting) to anyone who sits in it, setting the proper angles and such for comfort.  That would make it an ideal chair for many modern work settings where people move from place to place, gather in informal groups, or convene frequently in conference rooms. 

One thing that particularly struck me about the description was designer Koepke's finding that people generally don't take the trouble to correctly adjust their chairs.  Not when it's their own chair at their own desk, and certainly not if they don't expect to be in it long.  They find it too time-consuming or difficult to jigger with the various settings of seat, back, armrest, height, and so forth.   I suspect he's right about that.

So, while the claims about instant and automatic adjustment remain to be proved (I'd like to try one of these chairs for a while), it might be a great new idea, if it works as advertised.

Progress Going Backwards

The new car I bought a few months ago has all the new bells and whistles that the electronic age has brought to automobile dashboards.  In fact you can hardly even adjust the mirrors without electronics.

One of those geatures is the rear-view camera.  From my perspective, it's technology for technology's sake.  It offers little real value.  And, it's often a nuisance.  As I start my car and back out of our garage, the sensor system picks up the workbench that sits right in front of the car and starts beeping, while the camera will pick up the garage door - until it goes up high enough - and start beeping.  As I back out the camera continues to sound the alarm as it senses (1) the edge of the garage (eek!), (2) the rubber strip on the floor that seals the bottom of the door when it's closed (ack!), (3) the holly bush right outside the door (omigod!), and (4) neighbor's cars parked 30-40 feet away on the other side of my cul-de-sac (yee-ow!).  

All these beeps and bleeps are nothing more than distracting.  I know those obstacles are there, so mentally I tend to assume that the camera is detecting something else (which it isn't).  Over time, it is inevitable that I'll just learn to ignore the beeping, and I'm sure many other people will too.  Kids will be no less safe, cars will be more expensive, and we'll be none the wiser. 

We old-timers recall when cars had only two brakelights.  Then someone did a study and found that rear-end accidents occurred less often when cars were fitted with an experimental third brakelight above or below the center of the rear window.   It was evident (to me, anyway) at the time that of course people would tend to notice something they weren't accustomed to.  But also that if the third light became common, they'd soon learn to ignore it.  

Nevertheless, the government mandated the third brakelight.  People learned to ignore it and I have little doubt that a properly defined new study would find that the incidence of rear-enders, corrected for the greater number of cars on the road and other factors, is right back up to where it used to be.

Meanwhile, it's worth noting that the government has been agitating to require backup cameras on new model cars.  The requirement has recently been postponed again.  That's being interpreted as a victory for the carmakers, but I think it's also a victory for common sense. 

Brakelights then, backup cameras now.   Not much difference. 

 

When More Is Less

There was a time when "less is more" probably sounded like a novel idea, but it's almost a cliché now (although it can be a correct one).

In the wacky world of marketing, on the other hand, more is often, paradoxically, less. 

The example at hand comes from Palmolive.  In the photo below, the bottle on the right is taller and fatter than the one on the left.  The bigger one is conspicuously labeled "50% More!" while the smaller is equally noticeably labeled "30% More."  Naturally, the first question that arose in my inquiring reporter's mind was, "more than what?"

 

The answer, it turns out from a closer look at the fine print, is that the big bottle, at 30 ounces, is "50% more" than a 20-ounce bottle!  (Basic math.)  And equally exciting, the small bottle, at 25 ounces, is "30% more" than 19 ounces.  (Higher math - but not accurate math.) 

Well, there's a lot of talk these days about U.S. education being weak in science/technology/engineering/math.  I'm sure the good folks at Palmolive are just trying to help out by doing some math on their bottles. 

Otherwise, we might think that more is less.  More information, in this case, is less than nothing. 

And What Color Spoon Would You Like With Your Soup, Sir?

That title above may be a question your server will ask you when you go out for dinner in a few years, if the studies done by some British researchers are to be believed.  These Oxonians found, for example, that people eating yogurt with spoons of different weights judged the yogurt eaten with lighter-weight spoons to be "denser," sweeter, and more expensive than samples either with heavier spoons.   (That seems fairly self-evident to me: We associate weight with density, and if we're not told the spoons are of different weights, we assume that the yogurt is heavier.)  

These researchers also found that pink yogurt (presumably they mean the fruit-added sort, rather than plain yogurt that's actually pink, which might raise some concerns) seemed saltier when eaten from blue spoons, while no other color spoon seemed to have any effect on perceptions.

One suggested use of this sort of information is to help people eat more healthfully, that is (my words) to play psychological tricks on themselves to cause them to eat less, rather than simply deciding to eat less.  Because the latter method would entail deploying will power, and what a drag that would be!

I'm still in the will power world, personally, and while I wouldn't deny that I could stand to lose a few pounds, I am more than a little skeptical that the utensil with which  I choose to eat my food could significantly accelerate weight loss.  (Exception: Eating soup with a slotted spoon.)

Fortunately, the will power world is still well represented, and generally seems to get more reliable results, as a book review in the same "Health and Science" section of my morning newspaper attests:  "How to Prevent Diabetes" is another personal attestation to the value of gold-standard advice on losing weight:  "Eat less, exercise more."

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