Why Name It That?

21 February 2022

canard

I heard a TV newscaster say that there is a group of Republicans who "have bought into Trump’s canard that the election was stolen from him." I have heard that word before and assumed it meant a hoax. My wife, a French speaker, said that the word canard in French means "duck." What's the connection?

She looked in one of her dictionaries and found a 16th-century French expression - vendre des canards à moitié. It literally means "to half-sell ducks" but this was possibly a proverb meaning "to fool" or "to cheat." The origin story isn't known but may have come from someone trying to cheat a customer in the sale of a duck at a market. Can you pass off half a duck as a whole duck and so half-sell it? We don't know.

English speakers adopted this hoax or fabrication meaning of canard in the mid-1800s.

There is also an aeronautical use of canard which has nothing to do with a hoax. In aeronautics, a canard is an arrangement wherein a small forewing or foreplane is placed forward of the main wing of a fixed-wing aircraft or a weapon.

XB-70 Valkyrie experimental bomber

The term "canard" may be used to describe the aircraft itself, the wing configuration, or the foreplane. You find canard wings used in guided missiles and smart bombs.

This use of "canard" arose from the appearance of an aircraft called the Santos-Dumont 14-bis of 1906, which was thought to look like a duck with its neck stretched out in flight.

1906 Santos-Dumont 14-bis CC BY-SA 3.0, Link

14 February 2022

Printing Part 2: hot off the press, stereotype, typecast, make a good impression

Earlier I had an earlier post about some words and phrases that come from the world of printing and this is part two. Most of the words and phrases are quite old and printing processes have changed a lot, but some of these are still in common usage. I picked up this information from the book Printer’s Error: Irreverent Stories from Book History.

When you hear that something is "hot off the press" you know it's something new and up to date, but at one time it was something literally hot. In printing, it's not the paper or the press that is hot in temperature, it is the metal type itself. The Linotype machine invented by Ottmar Mergenthaler allowed compositors to type on a keyboard what they wanted to print and as they did so the machine would cast the type right there out of molten metal (mostly lead).

This process really sped up the older typesetting process of arranging "cold" pieces of type letter by letter.

The etymology of the company name Linotype is supposed to have come from the owner of the New York Tribune who excitedly said, “You have done it; you have produced a line o’ type.”

Take the idea of creating thousands of exact printed copies from a single original setting of type further and you get the modern meaning. The term "stereotype" is still widely used to mean when it is assumed that every person from a single group is the exact same. "He is a stereotypical jock."

When an actor is chosen for a role because she fits a certain profile, she has been typecast. “Type” and “cast” are both printing words. Molten metal is poured into a mold in a process known as casting. An actor who "fits the mold" of a role is said to be typecast. "She is often typecast as the suburban mom."

When you meet someone for the first time, like on a date or in a job interview, you want to "make a good impression." The Latin word imprimere means “to press into or upon.” American printers would make a first printing or first edition but in British English a print run was an “impression.”

09 February 2022

Jane's Addiction

Jane's Addiction, Charlotte Verizon Amphitheater, June 12th, 2009

Jane's Addiction is an American alternative rock band formed in Los Angeles, California in 1985. The band's original line-up featured Perry Farrell (vocals), Dave Navarro (guitar), Eric Avery (bass) and Stephen Perkins (drums).

Dave Navarro and Perry Farrell CC BY 2.0, Link

Jane's Addiction was one of the first bands to emerge from the early 1990s alternative rock movement and get some mainstream media attention, airplay, and commercial success.

Their initial "farewell" tour was at the first Lollapalooza festival which was a showcase for alternative rock. Farrell claimed that the band became what he called the leaders of the "Alternative Nation".

The "Jane" in Jane's Addiction was an allusion to Farrell's housemate, Jane Bainter. In the book Whores: An Oral Biography of Perry Farrell and Jane's Addiction, it is said that Jane was a college graduate with a good job but that she had a heroin addiction. The "whore" in the book's title comes from a girlfriend of Eric Avery who worked as a prostitute and supported the band financially in the early days. It is said that Navarro had considered calling the band "Jane's Heroin Experience" with the "experience" being an allusion to the Jimi Hendrix Experience. The real Jane wasn't happy with her name being used at first. The band's song "Jane Says" addresses that.

The band broke up in 1991, briefly reunited in 1997 and again in 2001 without Avery who declined to be involved. Then, in 2008, the band's "classic" line-up (with Avery) embarked on a world tour. Avery left again in early 2010 as the group began work on new material. The remaining members continued working and the band released its fourth studio album The Great Escape Artist in 2011.