How to pronounciate words

Do you remember Joe the Plumber?  If you don’t, I recommend you go do a quick Wikipedia search.  Go ahead, I’ll wait.

Ok, now that we’re on the same page.  So anyway, Joe is back.  In a staggeringly tone deaf move, “news” outlet Pajamas TV is sending Joe the Plumber to Israel to be war correspondent for their online division (and that’s all I’ll say about that, since this isn’t a political blog).  In an interview with Fox News yesterday, Joe said this to answer a question on how he is preparing himself for the trip:

Ah you know I’ve just been studying new, everything that comes out on the news lately, um, trying to get uh, how to pronounciate some of the names, things like that.

This sentence is a word geek’s dream.  There’s the “you know” indicating he doesn’t really know.  The “everything that comes out on the news lately” indicating “nothing that came out of the news”, and which is particularly ironic since he said earlier in the interview his reason for going there is this:

We don’t really get the full story. And so I’m gonna’ go there, interview some Israeli soldiers, civilian population and get their take on what’s going on.

But I digress.  There’s also the obligatory uh’s and um’s and “things like that” as he tries to come up with something remotely coherent.  And then of course, there is the pinnacle of content irony, the zinger: learning to pronounciate some of the names.

Classic.

For Jon Stewart’s take on all of this, see below (starting at 3:25).

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The correct spellings are right on the packaging, you see. Although “high lighter markers” conjures up some good imagery.

New Year’s Solution – Part II

I feel that Keri, as she is prone to doing, did not accurately represent my viewpoint on the whole “Resolution” thing.  (If you have no idea what I’m talking about, please read her post first at http://www.wordsaredelicious.com/2009/01/new-years-solution).

I believe that a project that deals with solving customer problems should be called “Resolution” as opposed to “Solution.”  This is because the word “Resolution” to me has a very musical connotation, as in:
a.     the progression of a voice part or of the harmony as a whole from a dissonance to a consonance.
b.     the tone or chord to which a dissonance is resolved.

It implies the progression from a customer problem (dissonance) to a solution of that issue (consonance).  Yes, I did use the word solution there, but the distinction in meaning and usage is important.  We come up with a solution, but as a company our responsibility is for the process of getting to that solution, and that process is called resolution.  It includes whatever solution is being proposed for the customer issue.

The Bach story, first told in 1775, is about an elderly Bach jumping out of bed to resolve a six-four chord left in the air by young Johann Christian, and Bach subsequently boxing Johann’s ears for this clear violation of proper musical manners.

And that’s why we call it “Resolution.”  Imagery, people, imagery…

Protein Enriched!

Because I work with words for a living, I tend to think about the people behind the content I see in my everyday life, and the process they went through to deliver that content. Was it a struggle? Did they have to present to a whole boardroom of harrumphing big-wigs? Or did someone just throw words around to fill space?

So when I see the gym-provided hair products in gallon-sized plastic containers touting,  “Protein enriched shampoo” and “Protein enriched conditioner,” these are the things I think about.

When creating content, one needs to consider the audience. I’m guessing the audience for generic beauty products falls into one of two categories: 1) They don’t care what they use or 2) They forgot their own stuff.

If we accept that hypothesis, why did the manufacturer feel compelled to include a little in-shower marketing for whatever random hair product was featured in their receptacles? Why the need to make it more appealing? How did they know the product would be enriched with protein? And what do they have against hyphens?

I’m not exactly sure I want to know the person who says, “You know, I brought my own, expensive salon shampoo, but look! This shampoo is PROTEIN ENRICHED! NO HYPHEN! I’m just going to pour my own stuff down the drain and lather, rinse, and repeat, BABY!”

Further, was there a process that included rejected phrases? “Freshly scented”? “Lathering”? “Clean-making”? Why was “Protein enriched” the phrase that pays? Did they do user research? Focus groups? Anything?

I have many questions.

By the way, the body wash in our gym is “Moisterizing.”

New Year’s Solution

At our company, we give our projects names. Sometimes they’re silly names (”Paul Bunyan” or “Trashcan Sinatras”) and other times they’re descriptive (”Make the problem go away”).* One of our latest projects has the word “resolutions” in it.

Rian approached me with this, absolutely positive I would agree with the ridiculousness of this word in this context. “Doesn’t this mean ‘New Year’s resolutions’ to you?”

As I am wont to do when Rian clearly wishes me to agree with him, I played devil’s advocate. “Well, yes, but in this instance, it could just mean more than one resolution. How many problems is this project trying to solve?” “Just one,” he said.

Okay, fine. Had to agree the plural form of “resolution” doesn’t work here. And besides, “resolutions” tends to refer to the pie-crust promises one makes at the beginning of the new year. I’m not sure why he didn’t think of that.

But then I thought on this a little more, and wondered why “solution” wouldn’t be a better word. And furthermore, what was the difference between a “resolution” and a “solution” anyway?

In doing a little research, I found the consensus to be “resolution” is usually a declaration or intent to create a solution or come to a decision, while “solution” means to actually fix the damn thing. Since I’m kind of hoping when we attack a problem we’re looking to solve it, I thought “solution” would be a better word.

Rian still thought “resolution” was a better word (sans “s”) and got all cerebral on me (he even pulled out a Bach reference… ask him about it. It was actually pretty good), but his argument boiled down to this:

“Visually, I almost see ’solution’ as a linear process (problem -> solution), where ‘resolution’ is more of a circular process that can take different paths along the way, but there is an ideal path to ‘bring it to resolution’ (search -> buy -> pay -> receive item -> problem -> resolve the issue). So I see ‘resolution’ not in the sense of “declaring a solution”, but the act of bringing an issue full circle to its natural/desired resolution.”

He basked in his obvious victory while I thought about it some more.

Finally, I said, “Why is the process important for the name of the project? Why isn’t the outcome the important thing?”

I think at that point he said something to the effect of, “Whatever. Shut up.”

And clearly won the argument.

*The names of these projects have been changed to protect our company and jobs.