I miss that town. I guess everybody else does, too. It's like the saying, "You can't step into the same river twice." It seems fitting that a city born of a gold rush has been seriously damaged by another one down in Silicon Valley. As far as I know, I never set foot in the San Francisco Centre (I was gone for the entire 1990s), but I remember the slow death of The Emporium.
Ambience? I remember going there once to buy some sheets or something, and when I found what I wanted I couldn't find anyone to run the cash register. I looked around and realized that there were no other people on the whole enormous floor, either customers or employees. It was eerie. Eventually, a desultory cashier appeared and rang up my purchase. No wonder they went out of business.
I just realized that my use of “cash register” and “rang up” is showing my advanced age.
The contrast with elevate/elevator is the detail that makes this click for me. We'd naturally assume both pairs work the same way, but escalate went machine → verb while elevate went verb → machine. The 1927 Atlantic quote is wonderful too — those hesitant quotation marks around 'escalate' capture the exact moment a word is being tested by a writer who isn't sure it's real yet. Watching legitimacy happen in real-time.
The trademark genericide angle is facinating - never realized escalate was literally born from a brand name dispute. That 1927 Atlantic quote showing early hesitation with those quotation marks around 'escalate' reminds me of how we stil hesitate with verbing nouns today. Language evolves fastest when tech creates real gaps in vocabulary.
I miss that town. I guess everybody else does, too. It's like the saying, "You can't step into the same river twice." It seems fitting that a city born of a gold rush has been seriously damaged by another one down in Silicon Valley. As far as I know, I never set foot in the San Francisco Centre (I was gone for the entire 1990s), but I remember the slow death of The Emporium.
The Emporium was my favorite department store.
I always found the merchandise disappointing and the ambience nerve wracking, but I sure loved that dome.
Ambience? I remember going there once to buy some sheets or something, and when I found what I wanted I couldn't find anyone to run the cash register. I looked around and realized that there were no other people on the whole enormous floor, either customers or employees. It was eerie. Eventually, a desultory cashier appeared and rang up my purchase. No wonder they went out of business.
I just realized that my use of “cash register” and “rang up” is showing my advanced age.
Well, (usage of) that (word) escalated quickly!
I just heard a Vietnam War-era song with a lyric saying “don't escalate.”
The contrast with elevate/elevator is the detail that makes this click for me. We'd naturally assume both pairs work the same way, but escalate went machine → verb while elevate went verb → machine. The 1927 Atlantic quote is wonderful too — those hesitant quotation marks around 'escalate' capture the exact moment a word is being tested by a writer who isn't sure it's real yet. Watching legitimacy happen in real-time.
The trademark genericide angle is facinating - never realized escalate was literally born from a brand name dispute. That 1927 Atlantic quote showing early hesitation with those quotation marks around 'escalate' reminds me of how we stil hesitate with verbing nouns today. Language evolves fastest when tech creates real gaps in vocabulary.