cutting, leading and bleeding edges

Companies all want to be at the edge. The university I teach at, NJIT, has as it's tagline "At the edge of knowledge." I always thought it was an odd line because being at the edge seems to be not quite there. Of course, it is playing off the terms leading edge, bleeding edge and cutting edge. Are they all the same edge?

plow via wikipedia.org

The cutting edge (also cutting-edge when used as an adjective) had a quite literal meaning back in the early 1800s of being the edge of a blade, especially in reference to plows. The more modern and figurative use appeared in the mid-1800s. The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) defines it as “A dynamic, invigorating, or incisive factor or quality, especially one that delivers a decisive advantage. Hence: the latest or most advanced stage in the development of something; the forefront, especially of a movement.” I suppose the idea is of a blade making a clean cut through what we know (norms, expectations, barriers) to new ground.

“Leading edge” (noun or also adjective) appeared in the 19th century. Again, it had a literal meaning similar to that knie or plow edge with it being the forward edge of the blade of a screw propeller that you would find on a ship. That would be the part that cuts through the water. It also referred to the edge of an airfoil on an airplane wing that faces the direction of motion.

Usages such as being on the "leading edge of technology" became common. I also found it to mean during WWII the “upswing” of an electrical pulse.

Appearing more recently (the 1980s) was the term “bleeding edge.” It seems to be just another version of the two previous terms which are often used interchangeably, combining the knife cutting image (bleeding) with the other figurative uses. However, it seems to be distinguished in its usage by the idea that something on the "bleeding edge" is very advanced but still quite experimental. It may be a technology that has no current practical application. That is something that can be risky. The word “bleeding” is sometimes used in reference to a financial loss. I would say that the bleeding edge is something that is beyond, perhaps not in a positive sense, the cutting edge.

pog

My sons were kids in the 1990s and one of them became obsessed with a fad game of the time call pog.  By osmosis, I learned about things like slammers and helped him both buy, make and organize his collection in tubes. The fad bled over to include characters from Pokemon and sports card collecting. A comic book shop in our town even ran tournaments for a time where you competed against other kids.

The game was also known as "milk caps" but the brand name "Pog" was more popular and that capitalized version is owned by the World Pog Federation.

In that odd way that origins sometimes go, the p-o-g of the term comes from a brand of juice made in Hawaii by Meadow Gold from passionfruit, orange, and guava. In its earliest incarnation, players used Pog juice and also milk bottle caps to play the game. This early, pre-commercializtion of the game seems to have originated in Hawaii in the 1920s or 1930s.

The current Pog juice product via products.lanimoo.com

The origin of the game has also been associated with Menko, a Japanese card game that goes back to  the 17th century and that used circular disk cards in a similar way to compete.

Menko cards

The use of the caps as a game and collectible in 1990s was popularized by the creation of the World POG Federation and the production of the game by Canada Games Company using the Pog brand name in the 1990s.

The Pog fad grew quickly and peaked quickly in the mid-1990s. I don't know that it is still played very much, but the game is still available for purchase and I found an active collection of links to new pogs and accessories online in places like Amazon.com and eBay.

I also see that more modern characters, like Angry Birds pogs, have appeared, so there may be some life still in the game - and maybe some resale value in my son's collection. Now, if those Beanie Babies that he also collected would only have a resurgence in value...

My son's version of the game

I found that besides the game and drink the word is also associated with the POG FC football (soccer) team, Port-Gentil Football Club, which is a Gabonese club based in Port-Gentil, Gabon.

INXS

INXS, pronounced as "in excess," started out as an Australian rock band, The Farriss Brothers in 1977 in Sydney. The main players were composer and keyboardist Andrew Farriss, drummer Jon Farriss, guitarists Tim Farriss and Kirk Pengilly, bassist Garry Gary Beers and main lyricist and vocalist Michael Hutchence.

Playing gigs with local bands like Midnight Oil, the suggestion was made to have an edgier name.

The INXS name was inspired by bands such as the English band XTC and Australian jam band IXL used a kind of acronym/abbreviation.

IXL ran ads with a man saying "I excel in all I do," and XTC stood for ecstasy.

INXS was fronted by Hutchence for about 20 years and their debut self-titled album charted in 1980.

On November 11, 2012, during their performance as support act to Matchbox Twenty at Perth Arena, Australia, INXS announced that the performance would be their last, though they did not officially announce a permanent band retirement.

Official band site www.inxs.com
INXS on Wikipedia

Sun Dogs

Sun dogs seen at sunset and close-up of one

This summer I encountered my first "sun dogs." I didn't know the name for this atmospheric phenomenon at the time. It wasn't a rainbow, but rather two circular "prisms" with a halo around them to the right and left of the setting sun.

My photos here don't do it justice. I posted them online and someone clued me in to the name.

These pairs of bright spots on either horizontal side on the Sun, often co-occurring with a luminous ring/halo are called sun dogs (or sundogs, mock suns or phantom suns) but are known to scientists as parhelia (singular parhelion).

They are one kind of halo created by light interacting with ice crystals in the atmosphere. Despite that ice requirement, they can be seen anywhere in the world during any season, but they are not always obvious or bright. Sun dogs are best seen and are most conspicuous when the Sun is close to the horizon.

In searching online for the origin of this term, I found, as if often the case, that even The Oxford English Dictionary states it as being "of obscure origin."  "Parahelion" if from Greek parēlion, meaning "beside the sun"; from para, meaning "beside", and helios, meaning "sun."

Here are some possible etymologies of the usage as noted in Wikipedia:

1. "false suns which sometimes attend or dog the true when seen through the mist." (defined in Abram Palmer's 1882 book with a very long title,  Folk-etymology: A Dictionary of Verbal Corruptions Or Words Perverted in Form Or Meaning, by False Derivation Or Mistaken Analogy
2. In Scandinavia, a sun-dog is a light spot near the sun, and water-dogs are the light watery clouds; dog here is no doubt the same word as dag, dew or mist as "a little dag of rain."
3. Alternatively, Jonas Persson suggested that out of Norse mythology and archaic names (Danish: solhunde (sun dog), Norwegian: solhund (sun dog), Swedish: solvarg (sun wolf)) in the Scandinavian languages, constellations of two wolves hunting the Sun and the Moon, one after and one before, may be a possible origin for the term.
4. In the Anglo-Cornish dialect of Cornwall, United Kingdom, sun dogs are known as weather dogs and are seen as a warning of foul weather. (The weather was fine after I saw my sun dogs.)  It is also known as a lagas in the sky which comes from the Cornish language term for the sun dog lagas awel meaning weather's eye (lagas - eye, awel - weather/wind). This is in turn related to the Anglo-Cornish term cock's eye for a halo round the sun or the moon, also a token of bad weather.

Book Titles

Authors often spend a lot of time trying to come up with a title for their writing. F. Scott Fitzgerald is a good example. Although he finally settled on The Great Gatsby, his notes and letters show that he had considered: Gatsby; Among Ash-Heaps and Millionaires; The World's Fair; Trimalchio; Trimalchio in West Egg; On the Road to West Egg; Under the Red, White, and Blue; Gold-Hatted Gatsby; and The High-Bouncing Lover.  Just before its publication, he said  “The title is only fair, rather bad than good."

I figure there are other stories of titles and came across a few to start that topic on this blog.

Baudelaire used the title Fleurs du Mal (Flowers of Evil) but its origin is not some clever allusion. Stuck without a title, he opened the naming to some friends while out a a cafe and Fleurs du Mal. An early example of crowdsourcing?

Now, to find some interesting title origin stories. Got one? Please leave a comment or email me.