April linkstack
Matzo branding, fast fashion, a nameless hockey team, crater names, and more.
Note to readers: This newsletter may exceed Substack’s email limits. To read the whole post, get the Substack app or use your browser. (Always a good idea anyway, because I sometimes correct types typos after the email is distributed.)
Hello to everyone, and a special welcome to all the new subscribers and followers who’ve signed up since the March linkstack. A quick briefing/refresher:
This is what “fritinancy” means (yes, it’s a “real word”).
If you’ve arrived via one of the fashion ’stacks, check out my forays into the world of style: What color is “washed”?, Kim Kardashian’s nipple bra, Phoebe Philo’s phabulous name, and the history and meaning of “plus-size.”
If you’re a naming nerd, check out Naming Briefs, my occasional critiques of names in the news (or newly on my radar). More Naming Briefs coming next week!
For fans of the royals, here’s my critique of the Duchess of Sussex’s oddly named new venture, American Riviera Orchard.
I’m always glad to receive your link recommendations.
My other writing
I have two new stories up on Medium. They’re paywalled, but you get gift links:
Celebrating the 25th anniversary of TiVo. The technology may have been made mostly obsolete by streaming television, but the TiVo name remains perfect.
Calling all matzo mavens!
Manischewitz, the 136-year-old kosher-foods company, unveiled a new look for its packaging just in time for Passover, which this year began at sundown on April 22.1 The new design, which aims to tempt younger and non-Jewish audiences, features “a color palette that leans heavily on the company’s signature orange, meant to evoke the appearance of its matzo ball soup,” wrote Remy Tumin in the New York Times (gift link). “It includes a custom typeface with Hebrew-inspired details, Yiddishisms (‘There’s bupkis like it!’) and whimsical doodled characters, reminiscent of Jewish cookbooks and prayer books from the 1950s, that are meant to invite everyone into the tent.” The new messaging may be a little too inclusive; as trademark maven Jessica Stone Levy pointed out on Threads, this matzo2 is not merely “perfect for Passover,” it’s required. Her rewrite: “The Soul of Passover.” Amen.
The best Onion story of the week
And for a change it’s 100% true: The satirical news site The Onion, founded in Wisconsin in 1988, has a new owner, Chicago-based Global Tetrahedron. That name is, “in true Onion fashion, a winking reference to a sinister fictional company featured in the book ‘Our Dumb Century,’ which was written by The Onion’s staff and published in 1999.”3 (New York Times gift link) The new owners — one of whom is Ben Collins, formerly of The Daily Beast and NBC News — will retain the entire staff and keep the business in Chicago. The Onion’s announcement of the news was also made in true Onion fashion.
Not so fast, fashion
A well-reported long read by Nicole Lipman for N+1 about Shein, the Chinese retail juggernaut that is “a microcosm of the internet and a sibling of the internet’s other most powerful retailer: weird, clunky, and seemingly thrown together.” For background on the Shein name, see my October 2021 post.
The new HBO documentary Brandy Hellville & the Cult of Fast Fashion attempts to tie together two stories. The first story is about the hugely successful teen-apparel chain Brandy Melville (creepy Ayn Rand–worshipping founder, exploited workforce, disposable fashion), and the other is about what happens to all those one-minuscule-size-fits-“all” clothes when their owners discard them. They end up on the beaches and in the marketplaces in Accra, Ghana, is what. The two stories don’t quite cohere, but I couldn’t fault the producers for making the effort, and the Ghana sections in particular are compelling.
And speaking of Ghana
A terrific report by
on the Ghana Must Go bag. “In Kenya they are known as Nigeria bags, and Zimbabweans call them Botswana bags. They seem to always be the bag of The Other: the carryall of the immigrant who is forced to pack up everything and leave.”We interrupt this linkstack to remind you that Fritinancy now has Chat, and you’re invited.
Where is the Oakland airport?
The Oakland International Airport is actually going through with its craven threat/promise to change its name to something un-rememberable. (Oaklandside) Across the bay, SFO is threatening/promising to sue. (SFGate) For my own take on this misguided venture, see the post I published last August, “Can Oakland International Airport’s problems be fixed with a name change?”
File under: annoyances
Remember S!MT!!OE!! from last week? What sets
’s teeth on edge is “I resonated with that.”The puck stops here
Poor Utah: new NHL franchise, no name. There have been multiple trademark filings, and the choice may be left to a fan poll. Please, please don’t let it be “Utah Hockey Club” — not when Utah Yetis is right there. (Thanks to Michael F. and Mark Prus for alerting me to this story.) “Yeti” is a Sherpa word derived from Tibetan gya “rocky place” + dred ‘yellow bear, hyena.” The creature, or cryptid, is also known as Sasquatch (from a Pacific Northwest Salish word meaning “bright”), which reminds me that I need to see the new release Sasquatch Sunset ASAP. Rotten Tomatoes calls it “absurdist, epic, hilarious, and ultimately poignant.”
Tech teams
On Arbesman.net, a compilation-in-progress of sports teams whose names are derived from technology (Pistons, Dynamo, Jets, et al.). I didn’t see the Purdue Boilermakers there, but they may be in the comments on Kottke.org, where I discovered the link.
Substack recommendations of the month
- Sundberg’s daily business-trends newsletter. Start with “Are Microplastics Seeping into Your Olive Oil?”
- , a self-described overeducated Xennial and a me-described contrarian Marxist. He consistently delivers provocative, well-written takes on a wide range of subjects, but what I enjoy most are his monthly roundups of other writers’ newsletters. Start with April.
- , by David Azrael. Does what it says on the tin. Start with Don’t Like: Buzzword Lyrics.
The pause that bamboozles
I’m still having fun on LinkedIn, which is where I discovered veteran ad copywriter and media critic George Tannenbaum. On his blog, Ad Aged, he recently he skewered an Earth Day-related Coca-Cola campaign that purports to be about recycling: “My real disgust at this work isn't that I don't understand it. It's that it's a lie.”
The lexicographer’s revenge
Earlier this month Dictionary.com, which calls itself “the world’s leading online dictionary” and which is affiliated with the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, laid off its entire staff of lexicographers, editors, and content creators. (See this eloquent farewell from former VP Editorial John Kelly.) This is depressing news, but at least one of the newly jobless, Nick Norlen, chose to turn it into a brilliant riposte, “Chatbots Can’t Smack Talk,” which he calls “a 1,400-word diss track showcasing the vast superiority of my word skillz over A.I.” He posted the whole thing on LinkedIn. Bravo!
A-I, A-I, oh!
Mignon Fogarty, known to her many fans as Grammar Girl, is pursuing a different interest with her AI Sidequest newsletter. The March 30 topic: “Will AI mean more work for editors?”
To which Ezra Klein, the New York Times columnist and podcast host, answers “Yes.” Here’s the first of three episodes Klein recently devoted to AI, “How Should I Be Using AI Right Now?” While you’re Klein-ing, don’t miss “The Rise of ‘Middle-Finger Politics’.” Compelling and deeply scary.
Linkless quote of the month
“In principle, I resent AI because everything here [at the magazine] is about bringing out voice. AI seems like a great idea for a search engine or perhaps for a conlanger looking to perfect their use of Chakobsa for a set of Dune-themed birthday-party invitations. Even in the latter case, though, the AI program is likely to fall short by presuming all Fremen have an equal grasp of their native tongue.” - Carl Rosen, New York magazine copy chief. No link because it’s from Rosen’s email newsletter, Queries, which isn’t duplicated online. Subscribe here.
What color is that name?
Elephant’s Breath? Cuisse de Nymphe Emue? “Let’s hear it for the true geniuses: the people who name paints.” (The Guardian)
Catalog heaven
A tribute to the J. Peterman catalog — “a print catalog-reliant business selling a wide offering of incredibly niche SKUs at generally reasonable prices” — by Colin Nagy for
Whether you know J. Peterman only from the “Seinfeld” spoof or whether you, like me, have adored the real catalog for decades, you’ll enjoy this salute to a quirky, copy-driven corner of American retail.Crosswords!
This month marks the 100th anniversary of the American crossword, and a new newsletter, Crossword Craze, is pulling out all the stops to celebrate. Contributors include Ben Zimmer, Natan Last, Parker Higgins, and Allegra Kuney. From the inaugural post: “On April 10, 1924, the first edition of The Cross Word Puzzle Book was published. Fearing failure or, worse, accusations of frivolity, Simon & Schuster published it under a dummy imprint. But the book was a runaway success. ‘Hooray! Hooray! Hooray! Hooray! The crossword puzzle book is out today!’ cooed Franklin Pierce Adams, who’d been worried that Margaret Farrar (then Petherbridge), F. Gregory Hartswick, and Prosper Buranelli—the book’s compilers—would ‘lose their shirts.’ The paper they all worked for, The New York World, had months earlier called a crossword book ‘the worst idea since Prohibition’.”
Crosswords may be old, but it turns out there are a lot of young solvers and constructors, the New York Times reports (gift link): “[D]oing a crossword today is less a quiet test of mid-20-century minutiae and more a spirited conversation with modern culture.”
Science-y names
On the terrific, long-running Allusionist podcast, host Helen Zaltzman interviewed Irish geologist Annie Lennox about the peculiar limitations — and opportunities — involved in naming craters on planetary bodies.
“[T]he naming of element 102, nobelium, is twisted and fraught with controversy as three different research groups battled for decades over the right to name the element.” — Dave Wilton for Word Origins.
Abandoned names
on “book titles I loved but didn’t use” for the book that ended up being titled Bookslut. Also check out Montell’s “books for linguistics lovers,” I’m looking forward to Bitch: The Journey of a Word by Karen Stollznow, which will be published next month and would have been handy when I wrote about bitchin’.Netflix’s original name had nothing to do with movies. (KRON-4 via Aaron Hall) And speaking of Netflix + bad names, who else remembers Qwikster?
Manischewitz wine branding is not affected by the design change because the company licenses its name to a separate manufacturer. (In 2021, the brand was acquired by E & J Gallo Winery.) Who else remembers singing “Man-oh-Manischewitz, what a wine”? Here’s a radio commercial from 1962 to rekindle that memory.
It can also be transliterated as “matzah” and “matzoh,” and probably a dozen other ways as well. I’m going along with the Manischewitz spelling.
I think I may still own a copy of that book. If not, shame on me.
According to Wikipedia, Dov Behr Abramson changed his name In 1885, when he emigrated to the United States,[2][13] using the identification documents of a dead man named "Manischewitz".[13][9][10][14]
I wonder if I’m related to him
Nancy: Just a quick note to tell you how much I love your newsletter. And these linkstacks are fantastic! A lot of people do link round-ups but you always pick great things to read. Keep up the great work.