Velcro

Here's another generic trademark post. Did you realize that it was back in 1958 that Velcro was patented? It was invented by George de Mestral, an electrical engineer from Switzerland who applied for his first patent when he was 12 years old, for a model airplane.

While on a hunting trip, he hiked through patches of burdock, a thistly plant that spreads its spiny seeds by latching them onto anything or anyone passing by. Back home he was picking the burs off his dog’s coat and his own clothes and got curious about how they so effectively attached to surfaces.

a hook and loop fastener generically called velcro

Under a microscope, he saw that each bristle was a tiny hook that was able to catch in the loops of clothing. It took him 10 years to get his hook and loop working by being sewn to nylon. There were hundreds of loops per inch and the initial production was slow and inefficient.

That is the origin story for the product. The word's origin is the combination (a portmanteau) of the beginnings of two French words velour, meaning "velvet" and crochet meaning "hook."

Velcro BVBA is a privately held company that produces fasteners and other products. It is the original patentor of the hook-and-loop fastener. Like other companies, it is not thrilled that their original product has been attached to generic products that are called "velcro."

Alice in Chains

Alice in Chains (abbreviated as AIC) is an American rock band from Seattle, Washington. It was formed in 1987 by guitarist and vocalist Jerry Cantrell and drummer Sean Kinney, who later recruited bassist Mike Starr and lead vocalist Layne Staley. They are associated with grunge music, although they also can be considered as heavy metal.

The band took its name from Staley's earlier group. That band was a glam metal band, Alice N' Chains. That band formed in 1986 had wanted to change their name to Alice in Chains, but there were concerns that the reference to female bondage would hurt the band, so they chose to spell it as Alice N' Chains. Staley's bandmates had also briefly considered the name Alice in Wonderland but settled on the version that could be interpreted as Alice IN Chains or Alice IN Chains in its pronunciation.

One humorous but unfounded origin rumor I found was that they were named after a lost episode from The Brady Bunch series which had a major character named Alice.

       

Ad-lib

Ad-lib is one of the most common Latin phrases used in English. Ad-lib is the shortened version of "ad libitum" which is Latin for "at one's pleasure" or "as you desire." Sometimes it is translated as meaning "at liberty" simply because of that "lib" syllable, but that is not an accurate translation.

The most common use in drama when used to describe times in performance when a performer uses words not found in the text. (When the entire performance is spontaneous and unscripted it is called improvisation.) This occurs on the live stage, in films, on television and frequently in situations such as the conversations on talk-shows, news, podcasts etc.

Larry David's HBO series, Curb Your Enthusiasm, is often pointed to as an example of ad-lib drama. The show can also be said to use "retroscripting." The series also has created its own collection of words and phrases, as noted in the video shown here.

Less well known is its use as a direction in sheet music where "ad libitum" indicates that the performer or conductor has one of a variety of types of discretion with respect to a given passage.

Ad libitum is also used in psychology and biology to refer to the "free-feeding" weight of an animal when the animal eats as it wishes rather than its weight on a restricted diet.