Odd Words

As my regular readers will know, I collect examples of strange uses of the English language by Americans, and publish these at the end of every year. I hope that the 2011 list of odd words meets with your approval:

• Overcast (n): "There will be breaks in the overcast later in the day"
• Get backlogged (v)
• Facebook (v): "Facebook us!" (friending is sooo 2010)
• Beautify (v)
• Flex (v): Be flexible about
• Threepeat (v): Repeat something three times
• Ouster (n): The act of ousting
• Disserve (v): Do a disservice to
• Belongingness: Belonging
• Tanner (adj): More tanned
• Outreach (v): Reach out
• Up (v): Increase
• Impactive/impactful (adj): Having an impact
• Headquartered (adj)
• Barefootable (adj): Capable of running barefoot
• Marriageable (adj): Capable of finding a spouse
• Credentialled (v): Having credentials
• Geek (v): I have no idea!!!
• Bring to justice (usu. pp): Kill
• Transact (v): Make a transaction
• Dead end (v): "14 Mile Road dead ends in 1 mile"
  
• Monogrammable
• Install (n)
• Awarded: Award-winning
• Stank (n): Stink
• Stankiest (adj): Smelliest
  

Odd Products

Yes, it really is a purple-and-blue cake

Honey, where did you put the glitter-duck Xmas decorations?

Prevents the neighbours' kids using your pool, I guess

(This was sold in a sports equipment shop)

Duped

Two days ago, I went to CVS, a nationwide chain of chemists (aka "pharmacies"), to get a very specific brand of cream: Aveeno. When I got there, I found what looked like two different types of Aveeno on the shelves, so I compared them and finally decided on one. Back home, my wife asked me, "Why did you decide to get the CVS-brand cream instead?"

I hadn't.

Returning to CVS to get the cream I had really wanted, I realised why I had bought the wrong one: I had fallen prey to the kind of consumer switcheroo that retail chains love to provoke. However, rather than the typical tactic of merely placing store-brand products in more prominent positions than third-party ones, CVS has taken a far more insidious approach: it systematically mimics the colour scheme and packaging of the most popular name-brand goods and then places its own products directly next to these.

As a result, the tube of CVS cream was in a white tube exactly the same size and with exactly the same shade of green writing as my Aveeno. Further along the shelf was a larger bottle of Aveeno with a dark green lid. The CVS-brand bottle of the identical size also had a dark green lid - and stood adjacent to the Aveeno bottle. Looking down, I noticed a different brand of moisturising cream with a blue-and-gold logo and a distinctive gold pump-dispenser. The CVS-brand cream right next to it was also blue-and-gold with a gold pump-dispenser.

Amazed at my discovery, I took a step back, and as I scanned along the entire aisle, I noticed that all the products on sale were deliberately arranged in pairs - each one a "real" product and its corresponding CVS "fake", like those blatantly forged Chinese "Nicke" T-shirts and "Adidash" trainers. And whatever packaging the brand-name products came in, whether bottle, tube or jar, CVS had created and stocked a virtually identical equivalent.

Look at the picture below, which I felt forced to take in order to document my flabbergastedness:


As you can see, the only visual difference between the brand-name products and the CVS ones is that the latter have a circular CVS logo - although this is always in the relevant colour scheme of the imitated brand-name product.

Americans justifiably always pride themselves in having a choice. This is not about choice, but a deliberate attempt to fool customers. Shame on you, CVS!

Running the Trails

First light. Leaving the car park, the noise and the fumes behind, I plunge into the trees, the mellow vibes of Incubus Radio setting the pace, the autumn foliage above bathing the world in a warm orange glow and dappling the leaf-strewn path at my feet. Pitter, patter.

Dew-drenched grass licks hungrily at my ankles, and it is good. Mist hangs suspended over a pond like a snug, grey blanket. The path weaves left, then right, then right again, gradually climbing.

A sip of my water bottle and I run on, penetrating deeper, deeper into the forest – my forest, at least for now. A startled deer looks up, further on a chipmunk, and another and yet a third, its striped back waving to me as it darts away. "I really shouldn't," it seems to chirp, "but Hi!"

Higher I climb, ever higher, sharp right and then left, while the sun, radiant, golden, climbs with me. I pass a moss- and reed-filled pond half-lit, half still in slumber, and that also is good. Up ahead an intersection. Which way? The longer way!

My steps are light, and I too dart over the rocks, the stones and the roots, right, right again, now left. Warmed like a snake on a path in the morning, I shed my T-shirt and immediately increase my pace, topless and free, a wild animal finally released from its shackles. I am one with the forest; this is what I do.

The path slopes steeply down and, lifting my arms to soar, I thrill at the sensation of falling, falling. On I go, past a small lake. Pitter, patter. The sun is high now, and the lily pads on the water reflect its rays like myriad silver mirrors.

Another sip from my bottle and I run on, barely touching the ground, right turn, hairpin left, then down again. And suddenly – almost too soon – I emerge from my leafy womb, out into the brilliant light. Now I too am radiant, vibrant, tingling with energy. I look down at my watch: has it really been two-and-a-half hours?

To be honest, who needs drugs, alcohol, caffeine? I ran the trails this morning, and in just a few hours I became the sun.

Garages

The American garage (pronounced "ga-RAHj") is an endless source of fascination for me.

Typically double - at least in my neck of Suburbia - and frequently triple or even quadruple, garages are the most prominent feature of the front of many houses (ours included); brash, bold, unmistakable evidence of the importance of the automobile in American life. And since they are attached directly to the house and often even heated, they could be considered a bedroom for the family's four-wheeled "relatives".

More often than not, garages are also the principal entrance to a house. We, for instance, nearly never use the front door except to receive and jettison guests. And since there's a door directly linking the back of the garage with the house, it's a good place to take off dirty shoes or get to/from your car without getting wet.

Best of all, garages offer plenty of storage space. Due to the way houses are built here, there isn't a loft, attic or cellar to put seasonal equipment and other temporarily superfluous items in. That leaves only one option: the garage. And boy, do people take advantage of this.

Now I don't know what you put in your attic, but I'm pretty sure that, like me, you use it to store all the things you don't need every day, but are reluctant to throw away: cartons of books, school trophies and memorabilia, every picture your children ever drew, odd ski poles, clothes, toys and stacks of your grandmother's World War II-era magazines.

Given that Americans are no less prone than their European cousins to hoarding, they have to put all these useless essentials somewhere. That's where the garage comes in.

Unfortunately, as one wise person pointed out to me, this means that people fill their garages with worthless junk, while their expensive cars rust outside.

Signs

Odd Products

Rice: a "food alternative"