Prisencolinensinainciusol

"Prisencolinensinainciusol" is a song composed by Adriano Celentano, and performed by Celentano and Raffaella Carrà. It was first released as a single on November 3, 1972, later also on his album Nostalrock. The lyrics are pure gibberish, intended to sound like American English as heard by a non English-speaker. In an interview, Celentano explains that the song is about "incommunicability" because in modern times people are not able to communicate to each other anymore. He added the only word we need is "prisencolinensinainciusol" which is supposed to stand for "universal love." (from wikipedia)

I'm a Mac (Smug) / I'm a PC (Stuffy)

Given the recent attention that Cristi has given to the Great Apple / Microsoft Ad War of 2009, I thought I'd call some attention to some ads that have escaped our Yankee eyes. No doubt, anyone with access to a television is keenly aware of the Mac vs. PC ads, the ones where Justin Long heaps steaming piles of smug on that unfortunate looking and woefully out of touch PC guy. What you may not have seen is how these ads were imported for the viewing pleasure of our friends from across the pond.

For those who haven't had a chance to see or have never heard of Peep Show, That Mitchell and Webb Look, or That Mitchell and Webb Situation, you should change that posthaste. The first season of Peep Show can be streamed on Hulu, the first season of That Mitchell and Webb Look can be streamed on Netflix, and That Mitchell and Webb Situation can be found on YouTube (along with the remainder of the other two series). These shows are without a doubt some of the finest comedy programs I've ever watched, and a clarion reminder of why the Brits do it so much better than we do (I'm sorry, but the American version of The Office is a waste of time, imho.) Anyway, when Apple decided to import the Mac vs. PC ads to the Queen's Country, they enlisted the help of David Mitchell and Robert Webb, who--you've probably guessed--created and starred in the above programs.

Like Oscar Wilde, George Bernard Shaw, or Winston Churchill said: America and Great Britain are two nations separated by a common language, and these ads when viewn through this lens change the tone of the ads quite a bit. They heighten the smug Mac / stuffy PC conflict to the point of ridiculousness, which has the effect, at least in my eyes, of invalidating the aim of the advertisements in the first place. Whereas they are supposed to be 'out with the old and in the with new' ads, they affect the tone of the cool kid in school making fun of sorry old Poindexter who is too wrapped up in his schoolwork to stop and smell the iFlowers.







Now, this brings me back to what Cristi was writing about with the populism of the Microsoft ads. Their recent ad where they give someone a thousand dollars to buy a computer was the most effective. While Macs may be slick, cool, easy on the eyes, and--I'm told--immune to viruses, they're still prohibitively expensive and not without their own shortcomings. If I were Microsoft's Don Draper, I'd produce a commercial where a Mac user fidgets with those oddly-designed AC Adapters that Apple makes attempting to plug it in at just the right angle so their MacBook Air will charge, gives up when they cannot accomplish this, calls tech support to find out that their AppleCare Warranty has expired, and then has to buy a new AC Adapter for 100 dollars which they will be given the option to have engraved. If that doesn't shatter Apples pretense of cool, I don't know what will. In short: To heck with Apples fashionability; all hail the rugged PC, as rugged as the hands of the proletariat.

And now for something completely different:

invented fraking usage

no sooner did i say (in my last post) that one person rarely, if ever, has the power to change language, than this lead comes out of AP:

What the 'frak'? Faux curse seeping into language
NEW YORK - Lee Goldberg thinks Glen A. Larson is a genius, and not because the prolific television writer and producer gave us "Knight Rider" and "B.J. and the Bear."

It was Larson who first used the faux curse word "frak" in the original "Battlestar Galactica." The word was mostly overlooked back in the '70s series but is working its way into popular vocabulary as SciFi's modern update winds down production. (full story here)

The article gives the same explanation for 'frak's 'virus-like' spread in culture as for its use on the show: "You can't get in trouble. It's a made-up word."

On Battlestar Galactica (or BSG to us cult members), 'frak' is everywhere. The plot centers on the military crew of the last battlestar in existence, which is about to be destroyed at any moment -- they're earthy, adult characters in a pretty fraking awful situation that merits a lot of cursing. In terms of usage, 'frak' is exactly equivalent to its 'real,' taboo counterpart. Characters accuse each other of fraking one another and they ask, 'What the frak?' I'm not totally sure, but I think they even call each other 'motherfrakers.'

While Larson, of the original series, claims he was trying to give the show an 'other-worldly' feel by using the made up word, it also clearly serves a really important purpose. I (and I assume a lot of viewers) was a bit turned off by it at first, but we definitely buy a made-up word more easily than we buy a bunch of soldiers who don't curse.

Language log has blogged quite a bit about what they call 'taboo avoidance,' especially at the New York Times and other media of record. But the frak of BSG is different for two notable reasons.

First, it's not in print. LL has chronicled a lot of attempts to orthographically represent curse words, like f***, f-bomb and #@!!*. But I'm unfamiliar with similar devices for the spoken word except saying "Starbuck here used an expletive."

Second, the NYT gets into trouble because the people it's quoting and reporting about curse. We all know the Times' motto, but some of the news isn't exactly fit to print. Larson and the other BSG writers, on the other hand, have no such task to accomplish. Their only obvious option was to write characters who didn't curse.

Exactly why 'frak' is ok by the FCC is another important question. One of the actors quoted by AP espouses a theory that it must actually be the sound of a word, not its meaning, that matters. But according to a recent appeals court ruling against the FCC, Bono's use of 'fucking' at the Golden Globe awards should not have merited a fine because "offensive language used as an insult rather than as a description of sexual or excretory activity or organs is not within the scope of the Commission's prohibition of indecent program content." (More on LawMeme.)

Though we started with the power of an individual, we return, as always, to the masses. Because 'frak' does not have the same history of usage as 'fuck,' it's not the same word. It doesn't carry the same associations as the really violent, angry instances of 'fuck' we've heard throughout our lives.

But the point of the AP article is that 'frak' is making its way into that spot in our vocabulary -- if only among the nerds. If this 'viral' propagation continues, and if 'frak' starts taking on those violent associations, maybe when they remake BSG in another 30 years, it will be just as taboo as 'fuck.' I've definitely caught a strain of the virus. I've never used it in anger, but I've cursed 'frak!' in my head a few times. I've also thought 'Gods damn it!' when the mood strikes.

(Thanks to Jamie for sending this one our way!)

a pretty, preettty, pretttty invented usage

a german exchange student i hosted in high school asked me, "what does 'pretty' mean?"
"schoen," i said. "beautiful."
"but you just said, 'it's a pretty good movie,'" she said.
"oh! that pretty..." and i discovered i really couldn't define what i'd meant.

not only that -- i wasn't completely sure what i'd meant in the first place. did i like the movie "to a fair or moderate degree" as per the dictionary.com definition of "pretty"? did i really dislike it, but want to avoid conflict with someone who may have liked it a lot? did my inflection rise from high to higher on "pretty," indicating that i was surprisingly impressed with the film? which of these meanings is conveyed by which prosodic pattern?

i can find surprisingly little information on the usage of "pretty" on the internet aside from the above dictionary definition, which isn't that helpful. "fairly" and "moderately" don't really answer the most basic semantic question, when i say something was "pretty good," to what degree did i like it? more than a lot? less than a little? a moderate amount?

some friends and i brainstormed and came up with at least a half-dozen meanings of "pretty" depending on context and inflection. some of these seemed to be ironic plays on each other. normally these things are considered adaptations or inflections on some basic semantic meaning. But i'd argue that there is no use in starting with the "original" or "normal" meaning of "pretty." we must consider apparently "external" things like context and inflection from the beginning when studying meaning. (and anyway, even language log says...)

using some humorous examples, i'd like to argue that we often deliberately use pretty to hedge or be unclear -- or uncertain -- about our meaning.

consider one of the most famous users of "pretty," Larry David of Curb Your Enthusiasm. a number of times throughout the series he says things are "pretty pretty preeeettttty, pretty good. pretty good," at pretty awkward and inappropriate times. hilarity ensues.

here, he's renewing his wedding vows. at a time when he should be as enthusiastic as possible, he mitigates his positive feelings by saying his relationship with his pretty wife is "pretty good."


in this scene, he's talking to a young man about his new relationship. the ambiguity of "pretty" makes for a very awkward situation.


in another scene that i couldn't find on youTube, larry gets reamed out by a near-stranger in a most extreme way, but when his wife asks, "how did it go?" he says "pretty, preettyy, pretty good."

i think those scenes are funny precisely because no one knows exactly what he means by "pretty." emphasizing the word that seems to have little to no meaning on its own is absurd and pretty funny.

i usually write these kinds of posts in response to a claim by someone i disagree with. but i wasn't able to find any in this case. i'd like to issue a challenge to any one out there in blogo-land to come up with a useful, semantic, non-usage based definition of "pretty."

admiral ackbar cereal!?

There's something rhetorically interesting going on in this, known as 'Sh!^ing around - Admiral Ackbar':It makes me think the original admiral ackbar might be the funniest thing ever created. Funny at all speeds.


But perhaps it's not quite as interesting as *this* remix:



These guys are just begging to be widely known on the internet:

looks like one of these 'make your own corporate commercial' contests.


But! when i went back to give you a link to the original vid--a necessary part of understanding the above videos?--i was faced with THIS.

In case that didn't work, what it is is a google search that shows a screen shot of the original video and then says "this is no longer available."


Somewhere out there, has someone, probably comedy central's lawyers, defined the difference between the original video and those above? or maybe they just haven't found them yet?


A consolation prize.


Whoa! I love the Godfather:



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