The Cobra Effect

The "cobra effect" is the term used for when an attempted solution to a problem makes the problem worse. This unintended consequence is often is used to describe environmental, economic and political solutions that work in reverse.

The term "cobra effect" originated when there was still British rule in India. The British government wanted to reduce the number of dangerous, venomous cobra snakes in Delhi. They offered a bounty for every dead cobra. So, people were killing them and collecting the bounty. At first, the idea worked. But some enterprising people began to breed cobras to collect more bounties. The government became aware of this abuse and ended the reward program. The cobra breeders had no use for the snakes and released their stock (though it's not clear why people didn't just kill them while they had them in captivity) and as a result, the wild cobra population further increased.

The UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change tried an incentive scheme in 2005 in an effort to greenhouse gases. If a company disposed of polluting gases it would be rewarded with carbon credits that could be converted into cash. The price for the credits was based on how much damage the pollutant was to the environment. The highest credit price went to HFC-23, a byproduct of a common coolant. As with the cobras, companies began to produce more and more of this coolant so that they could destroy more of the HFC-23 byproduct waste gas and get additional credits

This RadioLab program gives many other examples.

Bad English

       

Bad English was an English/American band that was considered a "supergroup." They combined hard rock with some glam and a bit of metal.

The formed in 1987 and reunited Journey keyboardist Jonathan Cain with singer John Waite and bassist Ricky Phillips who were his former bandmates in The Babys, along with Journey guitarist Neal Schon and drummer Deen Castronovo.

The band's name has nothing to do with poor language skills but comes from pool (billiards). The band was playing and when Waite missed a shot Cain said that he had "bad english" referring to the spin a player puts on the cue ball. The band decided to use the phrase.

         

Autumn and Fall

The words "autumn" and "fall" meaning the season that begins today in the Northern Hemisphere both originated in Britain, but one is more commonly used there while the other is more common in America. By the mid-1800s, "fall" was considered to be the  American season by lexicographers.

Autumn is the older word. It came into English in the 1300s from the Latin word autumnus.

At one time there was an intermediary season preceding our autumn that was called "harvest." It seems that autumn came into usage to distinguish between the time when one harvests crops and the actual crop harvest itself.

Writers, especially poets, wrote about the seasonal colors of this time and the phrase "the fall of the leaves" came into more common usage. That phrase was shortened sometime in the 1600s to "fall." This coincides with English moving across the ocean with explorers and settlers to the New World. But both words must have been used in the New World as they were in Britain because "fall" for the season doesn't appear until 1755 when Samuel Johnson added it to his Dictionary of the English Language.

Fall is still occasionally used in countries where British English is spoken, but more likely in phrases, like "spring and fall." American though I may be, I prefer autumn, since it is used to mark the Autumnal Equinox.

Pucks and Puckish

"Puckish" is an adjective that means impish or whimsical. We might describe someone as having "puckish humor."

the adjective has its origin with a character from Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream. Puck is "that merry wanderer of the night." He is a shape-shifter and mischief-maker. He answers to the king of the fairies.

By KCBalletMedia - Puck, CC BY 2.0, Link

William Shakespeare didn't totally invent the character who existed in Engish folklore. The traditional version of Puck was more malicious than the whimsical Shakespearean comedy character. The older Puck was more of an evil spirit or demon.

Back in Medieval England, this hobgoblin was known as the puke or pouke.  (No etymological connect to modern English "puke.") Those Medieval names go back to the Old Norse pūki, meaning "devil."

Shakespeare's much lighter Puck has stuck over the years and became the adjective that was appearing regularly in English texts in the 1800s.

We also have the hockey puck disk made of rubber that serves the same function in hockey as a ball does in ball games. This origin is more obscure. It may be related related to the verb to puck (poke) used in the game of hurling for striking or pushing the ball.

The shape of the sports puck is the origin for several other uses of the word.

A puck is also a graphics tablet accessory that is mouse-like and resembles the hockey puck and can detect absolute position and rotation.

The coffee grounds inside an espresso machine portafilter are also called a puck, because of its shape.

It is also sometimes used to describe a kind of a hard shaving soap that is used with a shaving brush and also resembles the hockey puck shape.

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."