COLORS:
1. Some companies used to name colors in a way that was clever but still identifiable. The examples I remember are "Zane grey" and "tuckered-out plum."
2. An old story tells of a husband and wife getting ready for a yard sale.
She suggested they print up fliers in an attention-getting color like "sunflower."
"Why do you have to give it a fancy name?" he replied irritably. "Just call it 'yellow'."
When they get to the copy center, he took control and spoke up first: "We want 20 copies of this on YELLOW paper."
To which the clerk responded, "Did you mean 'marigold'?"

In listening to the bit about cranberries in odd places, I remembered a trip I did to Washington state a number of years ago. I was driving up the west coast, stopping wherever something looked interesting. I ran across a cranberry research station in the southwest corner of the state and decided to check it out. They had a brochure stand out by the main plots for a self-guided tour.

One of the things I learned there is that not all cranberries are harvested by flooding the plot so the berries will float. Dry-harvested berries are used in cranberry sauce and juice. Wet-harvested berries are sold fresh. I assume because the berries get more beat-up by the dry process and look/last better if they're wet harvested.

ArteNow

T-tom – 'gringo' isn't necessarily a slur, although it certainly can be, depending on where you are. I think in Mexico it's much more of a slur than in some other places.

I've spent a fair amount of time in El Salvador over the years and (at least among the people I'm interacting with) 'gringo' is used as a simple descriptor and sometimes a term of affection. One time, a group I was with was traveling with the Bishop and one of our party overheard him referring to us as 'gringitos' with an affectionate smile on his face. He was a very kind man and would not have used any form of the word if he'd considered it a slur.

Concerning translating spoken language into written, Emma Hardman gave a good description of what is involved in recording parliamentary proceedings in Australia on an ABC (Australia) programme Lingua Franca. She makes it clear that a verbatim transcript would not clearly represent what was said.

As a linguistics minor at UNC I greatly appreciated the anti-prescriptivism bit of this show as well as the shout-out to Dr. Eble.

TStegall said:

When I was in high school 20 years ago we all wore bobos and they were shoes. They were the plain white shoes (similar to Keds) but were not marked, and very inexpensive, usually only worn a few times then replaced. Being the 80s we of course wore them with wildly colored socks too!

I went to school in Tampa Florida

In elementary and middle school in the eighties I remember singing about those shoes:
"bobos–they make your feet feel fine–bobos–they coss a dollar ninetey nine!"
This was in Elkton, MD

Post edited 4:31AM – May-25-10 by ablestmage

I work in the cosmetics department for a major US retailer, and we've recently gotten in a bunch of new nail polish (OPI brand) with particularly punny names..

Their site is flash-based and not linkable to interior bits, so try going to OPI.com, click on Nail Color in the top left, and from the drop-down menu, "All Nail Colors" and a grid will pop up on the fair right (may require side-scrolling) with mouseovers that list their clever names. A few favorites –

Teal the Cows Come Home, Aphorodite's Pink Nightie, Blushingham Palace, Argenteeny Pinkini, Ladies & Magenta-men, Bastille My Heart, Bling Dynasty, Here Today Aragon Tomorrow, Blue My Mind, Ogre-The-Top Blue, Yuctatan If You Want, Paint My Moji-toes Red, Conquistadorable Color, Silent Mauvie, Tickle My France-y, Over the Taupe, Melon of Troy, Pink Before You Leap, Red My Fortune Cookie..

There are also several from Sally Hansen that are nearly as nitwitted in nomenclature.. (visit http://www.sallyhansen.com/pro…..roduct=385 and hover your mouse over the color grid so the "alt text" will appear near your cursor:

Back To The Fuchsia, Shell We Dance, Plum's the Word, Commander In Chic, Yellow Kitty, Grass Slipper, Shrimply Divine, Pat on the Black..

In addition to these, the "Herbal Essences" brand of shampoo and conditioner also has some cleverly-called creations I thought were rather remarkable: No Flakin' Way, None Of Your Frizzness, Drama Clean, and Tousle Me Softly (from HerbalEssences.com, and hover the mouse over the "products" menu item)..

TStegall said:

When I was in high school 20 years ago we all wore bobos and they were shoes. They were the plain white shoes (similar to Keds) but were not marked, and very inexpensive, usually only worn a few times then replaced. Being the 80s we of course wore them with wildly colored socks too!
I went to school in Tampa Florida
My daughter is 17 in Atlanta and she uses bobo to describe something that is cheap or poorly made – a rickety chair would be “all bobo”, or a sloppy project board (like a science project) is “bobo” which is why they got a bad grade.
Just thought I’d share.
Love your show!!
Tracy Stegall