That's not an Ugg. This is an ugg. ...or at least an ugh.

I've been asked to get the word out.* So I'll actually get out two words: whooga and ugg.



First, I like the word whooga. According to Sarah at Whoogaboots, whooga "is [an] Australian slang word which refers to joy and happiness" and she tells me it's pronounced [hugaː]. In combination with boots it would likely lose any stress from the 2nd syllable, which would then be reduced to [ə]. That creates a nice easy contour over 3 syllables: primary stress/unstressed/secondary stress. Like boomerang. Or bandicoot. Similar in contour to didgeridoo. And the repetition of the [u] vowel is playful. Hula Hoop. Loop de Loop. Toodaloo. Foofaroo. Whoop-de-doo.

Now on ugg(s)

A few years ago when I heard people talking about uggs or ugg boots, I assumed it was a brand. The boots looked familiar, and I figured some company decided to specialized in an established style, and chose the name to play with "ugg" as a shortened form of "ugly" because of the rustic look of the boots. Well there is an UGG^® brand out there, and perhaps ugg is a shortened form of ugly. Tho Sarah at Whoogaboots reminds me that, as is so often the case, "the exact origin and meaning of the name is still fiercely debated."

A 1994 mention in the New York Times (by Timothy Jack Ward) refers to the boots as "ughs", explaining that it's Australian slang for the sheepskin booties that surfers use to keep their feet either warm or cool. (Hey, just like a thermos.) That's the same story you'll find in several places. That spelling could be combining a shortened form of ugly, with an onomatopoetic grunt. Now I mostly find uggs, a spelling perhaps influenced by the popularity of the Ugg brand. Which brand Ward then called "the footwear of the moment on the American West Coast."

One usage feature that's worth noting is the variation between "uggs" and "ugg boots". Those who object to "ugg boots" as a pleonastic form will claim that "boots" is unnecessary, as all uggs are boots. This is the same objection we might hear regarding a "cardigan sweater" or "Stratocaster guitar".

Others who object to the use of 'boots' might do so because they believe uggs should be contrasted with boots. By this view, there are boots, and there are uggs. They are distinct types of footwear.

Interestingly, tho the Whooga website itself alternates between "uggs" and "ugg boots"—which would seem to indicate that they believe the pleonastic use is acceptable—the site copy also apparently contrasts uggs and boots. Offering a bit of fashion advice, they write

"Black uggs tend to look much slimmer and more boot like than ’ugg’."

Now does the syntax mean that they're relying on a gap there, meaning "more boot like than 'ugg' [like]"? Or are they using 'ugg' as a complete predicate adjective as well? In other words: are they saying that black uggs don't look very ugg?

Well, the folks at Whooga are obviously proud of their product, and they're hoping to reclaim the association of the footwear with their brand. If you ask me, the boots are desirable for function more than form. And if you've seen the way I dress, you know I don't care much for style.

I'm not much of a boot wearer, but I also tend to avoid socks. And these uggs are designed to be worn without socks. Who knows, if I received a pair, I might just wear them. But only once I'm sure the fad is spent. And I'd probably go for the shorter style. Just in case, you know, you're feeling generous.

[Update:
I've added to the title of the post. The fight over spelling is not merely forthcoming. It is here. A Google™ search for "ugg boots" brings up several DMCA complaints asking for search results to be excluded. Among the sites that do appear are the UGG® Australia site, an uggbootsky.com site, the Whooga site, an Authentic Ugg Boots site, and several others. Fritinancy's predicted tUGG-o-war is going on. (See comment.)

Any comment I make regarding the generic or common spelling of the style of boot is in no way an opinion regarding the legal limitations on that or any other spelling. I just report what I find and describe what I see.]

---

* Full disclosure, I have received a consideration for mentioning the brand in this post and for linking to the website.

Even Ben Zimmer is upset

The biggest news in the world of words today: The Scrabulous application on Facebook has been disabled in the US and Canada.

There go all my bingos and my .660 record.

Damn you Hasbro. What are you thinking. Scrabulous posed no risk to your precious little realm. In fact this was probably going to help you:

1. People get into the game online.
   
2. The game is no longer associated with Saturday night at Grandma's.
   
3. Online play spills offline.
   
4. College kids go to the store to buy the game and what do they find? Scrabble.
   
5. You get the sale.
   

As evidence, I recently started a game with a friend and she wrote back:

I'm so there, it's insane! But why do I have the feeling that the linguist is going to kill me at scrabble?

Did you catch that Hasbro? It's still scrabble to her!

Puerto Ricans have a great exclamation for these situations. Ave Maria purisima!

And FWIW I would not have certainly beaten my friend at the game. She's a medievalist and plenty good at coming up with strange little words.

Ill effects

I've made the mistake a few times of stopping half-way while I'm writing the homework assignment on the board. I get a few characters written down then I turn to the class to explain something about the problems they'll be doing. The class chuckles and I turn around to see 'ass' written above me. It's not a ridiculous label.

But it's a mistake. One that I committed because I wasn't planning and suggesting and evaluating and picking a word to put up there. Not like a registered trademark.

A word of advice to the pharmaceutical companies out there looking for a drug name. Listen to the word. And don't get distracted by an orthographic/visual gimmick.

I guess the spelling convention of <pH>=[f] looked too good for Eisai Company, Ltd. of Tokyo to pass up in a heartburn medication.

the minutes:

Perfect! How can we put it in a drug name?

We need to get the word 'acid' in there too.

Yeah but we're getting rid of acid.

Well 'ex' always works for that.

Of course. And 'x' is awesome anyways.

So acidex?

No! Remember we need the pH scale in there.

Acidphex?

Looks too hard to say. And remember it has to be <pH> not just <ph>.

Oh right. Acid-pHex?

No. I hate hyphens. Didn't you hear the OED outlawed them?

Well let's just drop the <d>. AcipHex. That looks cool.

Sure does. Now let's ignore how it sounds.

How about this for a slogan: If you've got gastrointestinal problems just wait for the AcipHex!

Hm. I like the sound of AcipHex.

Google's grasp grows

One of Buffy's favorite comedy bits is David Letterman's Great Moments in Presidential Speeches. After a particularly funny one tonight she remarked that she wished we had recorded it.

"Wouldn't that be great to have them on tape?" she opined/asked.

Without thinking about a website mismatch I responded: "You could just go on YouTube and google all of them."

I know Google bought YouTube but I'm still quite sure I said it without a capital 'G' or the trade mark symbol (™).

[BTW Update:
Yeah yeah I know that this use of google as a verb is common. It was just because I used it expressly in connection with another website that it flicked my attention.
]

Why I otter!

Let's stick with regional issues. A friend recently sent a note saying

I want to know if you've heard of any other names for the ice treat I'm eating in my profile picture.

What kind of ice treat is she eating you ask? Well...Freeze Pops or Freezie Pops or Freezer Pops or Flav-Or-Ice or Mr Freezie or Mr Freeze or Otter Pops. (There is an unfortunate polysemy with one of those.)

I had never heard Otter Pops. It was provided by one of our West Coast representatives. I assume the playfulness of otters has something to do with the name. You know--how they play around in the water like little kids do in the summer. Running up and down the Slip 'n Slide. Taking breaks to enjoy their regionally named flavored ice treat.



Any other suggestions for why they're named so? Any other names you've heard of?

I can name that drug with three connotations

Daniel's suggestion of Ameliozene is good (comments of last post). These drug brands can be just that transparent in their implications.

Some notable drug brand names (assume a little ® after each):

Abilify: This antipsychotic drug has a nice 'verbing' name. To make able or to give ability is to abilify right?

Acarbose: Of course diabetics want to neutralize or decarbify all those sugars. They're not carbs. They're Acarbs.

Actron: Not only will you ease your suffering from osteoarthritis, you'll be strong like a robot!

Alavert: Avert is not only appropriate for someone hoping to avoid allergies--vert is also a popular syllable with that upright connotation.

Bactroban: This medication for bacterial skin disease has a negative sense. The name introduces itself as half bacteria for goodness sake.

Celexa: Half of the Citalopram molecule was useless and caused side effects. So they refined it and used only the good half to make Lexapro (Escitalopram). It's like Celexa finally made it to "the show."

Eulexin: These brands love that 'X'.

Flomax: Your enlarged prostate is keeping the flow to a minimum. Well take it to the max. (See this SNL ad for Urigrow. A disgusting parody that's very funny.)

Januvia: For some reason J is not a popular initial letter.

Miltown: Feeling anxious. Come on down to Miltown. More Chillin' when you're illin'

Provigil: Pro is a popular drug brand name morpheme. What sufferer from narcolepsy doesn't wish to be capable of a vigil?

Proscar: Either a racing circuit or a lobby in favor of the cicatrix or a bad name for a medication for an enlarged prostate.

Wigraine: Suffering from migraine? Wigraine? Because you deserve relief.

Wytensin: Why so tense? Wytensin. (You know they thought of that.)

Zanamivir: It's intended to curtail the flu virus. It sounds like the master of the pan flute. Wait. Zanamivir... respiration... flu... playing the flute... pan flute master Zamfir...

Zyban: We don't want any more Zys Dammit!

So I suggest we call this new drug Extasty (PRO) and make it in the shape of a little candy heart stamped with the message "Say Yes to Me!"

Ask your doctor about

We call on Thursday to beg them to let us take the not-yet-approved-for-use-by-humans drug. It's name so far is APD791. "This is the first study in which APD791 will be given to humans." Here's the word on the street about it:

APD791 is a selective inverse agonist of the 5-HT2A serotonin receptor. By selectively inhibiting the activation of 5-HT2A serotonin receptors found on platelets and vascular smooth muscle, Arena believes that APD791 may reduce the risk of arterial thrombosis and conditions such as acute coronary syndrome, heart attack and stroke.

Sweeeet.

If we are among the chosen few we will be the first humans to take this. Fortunately that means that our dosage will be low: 1mg one time. The plan is to increase the dosage (in later studies) as high as 160mg.

But the fun has already begun. Today we showed up and signed on all the dotted lines agreeing to risk the following:

nausea, abdominal pain, rash, headache, dry mouth, dizziness, drowsiness, common cold symptoms, and nausea.

Other side effects also include nausea and sometimes feelings of nausea. And those are just the "common" side effects of similar drugs. Of course the list continues:

hepatitis, kidney stones, heart attack, low blood pressure, abnormal heart beat, bleeding from the stomach, nose bleed etc.

Okay--they list heart attack third. As if they had to ease up to it then taper back down. Why bother listing anything else?

"What might go wrong?"
"Oh there are several possibilities. Your heart might stop beating."
"Hmmm...tell me more before I decide."
"Well you might have trouble sleeping."
"Wow that sounds serious. Anything else?"
"Dry mouth..."
"Whoah! Get me outta here!"

Among the "side effects" listed are "abnormal laboratory test results." This is the type of warning that could be nothing or it could be horrific.

Scenario 1:

"Your results are back and I'm a little concerned about some abnormalities."
"Oh No! What is it?"
"Well your cholesterol is surprisingly good for someone with your diet and you seem to have antibodies making you immune to to every disease known to man."
"Hmmm...That's odd."

Scenario 2:

"Your results are back and I'm a little concerned about some abnormalities."
"Oh No! What is it?"
"Well we can't find your blood and it says your soul is dead."
"I have crossed oceans of time to find you."

But the name needs work. APD791 just doesn't have the right connotations of health vigor and longevity that it needs in order to sell. How about a little game of fill in the blank hinted at by the title post:

Ask your doctor about ___________.

I'm going to think about this for a few hours before posting again tonight.

Word games

I've married someone who loves words as much as I do. She is more dedicated to nurturing her vocabulary than anyone I know. When we began dating I noticed a laminated page on her wall, full of words and definitions. She would just sit and memorize. She gets about seven word-of-the-day emails every day. Rarely do the emails give a word she doesn't already know. It's not that they send easy words (like impudent prescience subservient or mutability) - they send weird and obscure words: conquian vilipend drawcansir verjuice...

When wooing her I was as reliant on a thesaurus as Christian on Cyrano.

And even with her lexi-lust I can't get her interested in phonology. I start to tell her about my latest realization or theory (I've stumbled on more of the former than I have formulated of the latter) and her eyes begin to dart past my shoulder to the clock. She gives a tight closed-mouth smile and begins to blink quickly. When I look away for a second I suspect she rolls her eyes and takes a deep breath.

It's the same reaction I give her when she begins to talk about the latest Nicole Richie gossip or the latest news about how Angelina and Brad are going to save the world.

Our interests do converge on word games (I'll differentiate word games from language games which I will discuss in my next post).

We share an early memory of sitting in my office playing Boggle even before we were dating (That's about 1st base in the Seventh-day Adventist culture). She has never won a game of Boggle but she is leading in the Scrabble series. When we play Balderdash she regularly knows the definition and doesn't have to make one up. And then there are the non-competitive games. One of us will come up with a category and we take turns coming up with appropriate items. I've decided to include such categories occasionally as a post. Nothing polemic. Nothing provocative. Nothing controversial.

Here's a list that has been augmenting for years. But because of my terrible memory and since I've not written down the items I have to start from scratch.

Words that are accepted as common nouns/verbs that were originally brand names:
kleenex
frisbee
xerox
jet-ski
band-aid
coke (down south)
cuisinart (for food processor - the popularity of the FoodTV and epicureanism is teaching people to recognize alternatives to this brand - slowing down or even reversing the process of genericism).
kodak (just like the previous - almost dead since the 80s because of Fuji's quality and now digital photography).

See - I'm starting to rely on marginal candidates to the list. I'll post more in the comments section as I think of them. That is if you don't beat me to it.

Do You Sudoku?

We find words that enter common usage with little examination. It's usually a case of very specific meaning and frozen application. take for example sudoku. People hear this word and find out about the puzzle and leave it at that. This is probably a case of altered and focused interest. In this case the puzzle enters our sights and we ignore the reasons and history behind the label.

These are often proper nouns. And just like names of interesting people, we're more interested in getting to know the person and so we ignore the name.

But because it's a recent introduction and it's still the topic of much conversation there are bound to be many discussions alighting on the meaning of this word. We look and we find nothing too interesting. It's a shortened form - 数独 - of the Japanese "numbers for when you're alone" - 数字 独身. It's a brand name that would be loosely translated to "number alone" or "number singly." I'll choose to translate it as number solitaire. Makes sense to me (this is not based on any knowledge I have about Japanese; it's just my reasonable assumption given what information I've found out there).

I won't yet admit that I'm addicted to the game - but once I realized that I didn't have to actually count, and that game could just as easily be played with shapes or colours (though nine colours would be hard to manage visually) my math panic subsided and I tried a few. I was okay trying to complete one puzzle a day - until my sister suggested this site: http://www.websudoku.com/ . Now I'm developing a dependency on racing against the clock - and all other racers.

It's a wonderful site because it times every game and allows you to see how your time compares to the average of all players on the site while also keeping your average. My best time so far is 4:27. (game #5,548,314,839 ) not too bad - it put me in the 80th percentile. But that's on the easy level and I'm sure there are several people who don't take the easy level too seriously. I imagine I'm doing well only when compared to elementary school kids and soap opera fans. My average time over 25 "easy" games is over ten minutes.

The USER average time for a "hard" puzzle: 12 minutes 26 seconds
MY time on a "hard" puzzle: 38 minutes 24 seconds

That puts me in the very select bottom 3rd percentile.