Snopes.com

You know that email you got about helping someone in the UK get a few million dollars out of a bank? Maybe you got an email about missing children or a prayer request for a dying child. Did you wonder if forwarding a message could really get you money from Microsoft?

Hopefully, you have also come across snopes.com. It is a site run by David and Barbara Mikkelson and it is a website to find out the truth about many urban legends on the Internet.

David Pogue did an interview with them on CBS News Sunday Morning segment. They revealed the origin of the name. Snopes is a family of characters in the works of William Faulkner. The Snopes were at the bottom of  "social ladder." The connection to the site's purpose? None.  It's short, easily remembered and distinctive and that's good for a site name and URL.

Which of these Net legends have any truth to them?  Answers at snopes.com

1. Cellphone companies are going to make cellphone numbers available through a directory assistance service and that will pump your phone number to telemarketers. 
2. In August, Mars is going to be so close to Earth that it will appear larger than any time in our lifetime. 
3. Phil Collins told Jews to leave his concert.
4. An email postcard that you get contains a virus.
5. A Canadian lawyer left his money to whichever woman had the most babies in the decade after his death.

Next time someone tells you via email or in person that they are mad about the government taking "In God We Trust" off the new Presidential dollar coins, you can say, "Well, according to snopes...

Kafkaesque

An illustration from R. Crumb's book Kafka

"Kafkaesque" is an eponym used to describe concepts, situations, and ideas which are reminiscent of the literary work of the writer Franz Kafka.

The term generally means a senseless, disorienting, frightening complexity. It is similar to the bureaucracies found in his novels The Trial and The Castle, and some stories such as "The Metamorphosis."

The term has become used in a less literary and looser sense as surreal situations and ones where reality seems distorted in some bizarre way or are incomprehensibly complex, bizarre, or illogical.

In Woody Allen's Annie Hall, a woman tells Alvy after sex that it was a Kafkasque experience. "I mean that as a compliment," she adds when he seems understandably baffled.

In The Trial, the protagonist is supposed to go to a meeting but isn't told the time of the meeting. He assumes it will be at 9 o'clock, but arrives an hour late and is told he should have been there at 8:45. The next week, he shows up at 8:45, but no one is there. He feel absurd when arriving early and guilty when late.

TMZ

A reader sent in a "request" asking me about the story behind the website and TV show TMZ.

In the time that it took for him to email me, he could have found the answer online, so I don't normally do requests (though I do like getting corrections and additions). But, I didn't know the origin of TMZ myself, so I took up the task.

TMZ broke the MJ death story and got a lot of press for it.

TMZ.com is a celebrity news web site and TV show that started five years ago as part of AOL when America Online was a bigger name online. The site is now solely owned by Warner Bros.

My guess would have been that TMZ meant "the movie zone" but that's not it. It actually stands for the "thirty-mile zone" which is more of a Hollywood insider reference.

The 30 mile zone (or "studio zone") is a thirty-mile circle centered on the intersection of West Beverly Boulevard and North La Cienega Boulevard in Los Angeles.

Shooting films and video within this zone is considered "local" while shooting outside this zone are subject to mileage and travel time charges by the talent and crew.

Take a look at a map of the TMZ

Why DID They Name It That?

Why Name It That? has been online for about three months. The intent was to post the origins of names - mostly rock bands, but also products, teams, places and others. A kind of etymology that goes beyond words.

It's not a unique idea. There are plenty of serious etymology books (see below) and websites and ones that focus on places, names and even rock band names. I have a shelf full of them.

The term etymology probably scares off many people, but I think there's a wide interest in why some names get attached to people, places and things. They are fun, trivia, conversation-starters.

I bit later today I'll post my first "request." Someone sent an email asking why something was named that. Now, I'm not looking for requests. I have a backlog of things to post that would keep me busy for years just from the original version of this site that my son did years ago. But the request was an origin that I didn't know, so I did a bit of research.

That's why I'm not big on requests. The Internet makes it so easy to find these things that you shouldn't have to ask someone for the origin. So, the challenge is pick things that you don't know anything about but might like to know.

Any real fan of The Doors knows that the band took its name from two authors that Jim Morrison admired - but why would you name a soda Dr. Pepper?


       

• Barnhart Concise Dictionary of Etymology
• Word Origins And How We Know Them: Etymology for Everyone
• The Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology
• The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology (Oxford Paperback Reference)
• Origins of the Specious: Myths and Misconceptions of the English Language

Jersey Shore Bennies and Shoobies

  
A "Benny" is a derogatory term used by residents of the (New) Jersey Shore to describe tourists.

Though the origin is arguable, many people believe that Bayonne, Elizabeth, and Newark originally made up the B,E,N of the word when it was used in the early part of the 20th century.

These days, it applies to any non-resident during the summer months that is part of the crowd that jams roads, stores, beaches, and restaurants. Of course, those Bennies are also the lifeblood of the summer tourist economy.

Benny is the term used predominantly by year-round residents of the beachfront towns of Ocean County and Monmouth County. In the southern Jersey Shore (Long Beach Island to Cape May), the term "shoobie" is also used.

Originally, shoobies described daytrippers who came by train to the shore. The railroads offered pre-packed lunches that came in shoeboxes (a box lunch) that labeled them as shoobies. Today it can be attached to those visitors who arrive by car but wear sneakers or shoes on the beach, as opposed to most locals who go barefoot.

(There is no connection to the slang uses of "Benny" as a nickname for the drug "Benzedrine" or a term that refers to a type of overcoat.)

• The Jersey Shore: Atlantic City to Cape May
• Jersey Shore: Vintage Images of Bygone Days 
• The Jersey Shore Uncovered: A Revealing Season on the Beach 
• Saltwater Taffy: A Summer at the Jersey Shore 
• Boardwalk Memories: Tales of the Jersey Shore 
• The Roaring '20s at the Jersey Shore