I always have trouble typing ‘you’ for some reason. I always leave the ‘u’ off; in some sort of ironic, post-modern, self-referential, conceptually-based profundity or whatever… Actually, the significance of taking the ‘u’ out of ‘you’ had never occurred to me until just typing that ‘u’ then. I thought it all had something to do with my fingers, but maybe it’s my subconscious acting on my very conscious loathing of the ubiquitous, modern-times ‘you’ replacement?
We’re so lazy these days that 2 extra keystrokes is 2 much 2 ask. Who's so busy that they can’t find time for a couple of extra keystrokes here and there? How much easier is it to type really? On keyboard or keypad. How many baby harp seals are you clubbing by using 'you'? And don’t even talk to me about ‘ur’. It’s moronic. ‘Ur’ is what you say when you’re trying to work out 2+2 and you just can’t do it. “Urrrrrrrr… dunno an’ stuff?” I think it’s the one I hate the most… scratch that, I just remembered ‘2moz’.
Anyway, I didn’t start out to write about grammar and how much pleasure I find in keying in words in full into text messages (and using correct punctuation). I just wanted to comment on how I keep typing ‘yo’ instead of ‘you’, and how it’s a problem because there’s always the chance, particularly with clients, that they might think I'm being a bit too familiar, or that I'm trying to be hip and with it, down with the Now generation. “Do yo want me to email that PDF to yo?” I’m only a couple of emails away from, “Sup dawg?” Help!
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Posts
scratch that, I just remembered ‘2moz’.
ReplyDeleteI have never encountered that particular abbreviation, although after a few seconds' googling on A9.com, I am now...
Well, I suppose the correct word is "educated", but it doesn't feel correct.
Can you 'google' on A9, and can you make a 'Rum & Coke' with Pepsi?
ReplyDeleteYou can certainly 'hoover' with an Electrolux, or 'xerox' a document with a Canon photocopier.
ReplyDeleteOh, and in some parts of the USA, 'coke' is a synonym for 'carbonated soft drink, regardless of flavour', just to add another layer of linguistic confusion.
Well, I suppose the correct word is "educated", but it doesn't feel correct.
ReplyDeleteHe, he. You must unlearn what you have learned, JJ.
I seem to recall you talking once about how it's a negative when a brand becomes so ubiquitous that its name becomes a thing rather than a kind of thing? Xerox and Hoover being two prime examples. I would have thought it was desirable. It's a sign that people associate you more than any other company with a particular product. I guess it might mean that your brand loses currency because it's seen as being generic, but are people less likely now to buy a Xerox because 'xerox' is also a verb? Set me straight, JJ.
ReplyDeleteDid 'Palmtop' enter the vernacular before or after 'Palm Computing' was founded in 1992? Were they the first to talk about 'Palms'? It would seem they were actively courting the Xerox phenonomen (or whatever it's called) by eventually changing their company name to the very generic 'Palm'. I know it isn’t 'Palmtop' but I for one talk about using my 'Palm'. (No relation to Mrs Palmer, Bomber). It’s sort of like, “When you think of Palms, think of us,” or “Other companies make Palms, but we are Palm.”
ReplyDeleteWhatever their intention, it’s ironic, and intensely annoying, that although the product name, 'Palm Pilot', was used for two short years ten whole years ago, it’s that name that most people seem to have adopted for the generic device. Even ones not made by Palm! They don’t have a Palm Tungsten or a Palm Zire: they just have a Palm Pilot. Even people who wouldn’t have known what a Pilot was when it was around, now use the term to describe a device that isn’t one! Argh! IT’S NOT A PALM PILOT, YOU FREAKS! Why won’t people stop calling them Palm Pilots???!! Glory; three question and two exclamation marks. I need to go and lie down. :-)
Top Three Most Hated Abbreviations (work in progress):
ReplyDelete1. 2moz
2. ur
3. cu / cya
Set me straight, JJ.
ReplyDeleteHappy to.
The short version is that when a brand becomes ubiquitous, competitors can use it too.
You can't trademark a common English word. (That's not srictly true - there is both a record company and a computer company that own the trademark 'Apple'; however it is true to the extent that a fruit seller would have no joy from the courts if he somehow managed to trademark the word 'apple', and then proceeeded to sue other fruit sellers who used his 'trademark' to describe their wares.)
This also applies retroactively - if your trademark becomes ubiquitous to the extent that 'Hoover' and 'Xerox' have (as have 'asprin', 'cola', 'Palm Pilot', '486' and quite a few others) competitors can happily use this newly-minted 'common English word' to sell their product.
This is not the ideal outcome for companies that spend money to build brand awareness.
The things one learns when googlin' around (googlin' around, googlin' around) ...
ReplyDeleteXerox is apprenntly not considered to be a ubiquitous enough word in US English for this phenomenon (do-doo do-doo-do) to apply to Xerox. Why? Well, because at one point Xerox launched a massive marketing campaign to popularise the word 'photocopy'. Obviously, it worked.
Interestingly, in Russia, it didn't: 'xerox' is considered a common enough word in Russian for the company to have lost trademark protection of the word in that country.
The trademark 'aspirin' was taken from Bayer (a German company) as a spoil of war in 1919. Bayer has since then bought many of the companies to which its trademark was assigned, but not before it had become genericised in some markets.
486, of course, was not a trademark - since you can't trademark a number. Hence 'Pentium', 'Centrino', et al.
As for 'Palm Pilot', take a chill pill. It wouldn't surprise me if Palm, Inc are happy to have 'Palm Pilot' be the generic name for a handheld computer - especially since if 'Palm' became generic, they'd lose that trademark.
Do you get just as upset at people who call the metallic devices in the crotch of their trousers 'Zippers', even if said device was not made by the Goodrich Corporation? 8^)
(googlin' around, googlin' around)
ReplyDeleteGoogle. The search engine made by young adults, for young adults...
Xerox launched a massive marketing campaign to popularise the word 'photocopy'.
I was going to say before: Joey Public might use the word ‘xerox’ as a verb, but I doubt Canon, Ricoh, Lanier, etc, would; no matter how ubiquitous it got.
Do you get just as upset at people who call the metallic devices in the crotch of their trousers 'Zippers'
I didn’t, but I bloody well will now! Thanks a lot.