Fritinancy

Cigar Men

Cigar-store Indians—those once-ubiquitous carved statues that advertised tobacco shops—began disappearing from U.S. sidewalks more than 50 years ago. But on my ramblings around San Francisco I’ve taken note of their 21st-century folk-art equivalent: cigar men. Not men with cigars: cigar-shaped men. They’re slightly surreal and completely wonderful.

Here’s a studious-looking specimen in front of International House of Wine (no website), in the theater district at 395 Geary Street:

 

 

There’s a Turkish-stereotype (or Shriner-stereotype) cigar man in front of Dean’s Fine Cigars at 715 Market Street.

 

 

And on the other side of the door there’s an endangered cigar-store Indian gazing skyward.

 

I think he’s saying, “Oy vey—it’s come to this?” On behalf of all European-American usurpers, I apologize.

I couldn’t help noticing that the skinny yet muscular arms of the fez-wearing cigar bear a strong resemblance to those of International House of Wine’s cigar man. The same artist, perhaps?

There’s a clue on the base of the Dean’s sign:

It turns out that Back to the Drawing Board has done a lot of inventive advertising art in San Francisco and Grass Valley. Until I checked out his (her? their?) website, I hadn’t realized that the non-cigar sidewalk sign in front of Creative Marketing Concepts, at 572 Market Street, came from Back to the Drawing Board.

 

Sometimes a cigar is not just a cigar. It’s a fountain pen!

The cigar men seem to have replaced a more realistic genre of street advertising, as seen in this photo I took in 2009 on Third Street near SFMOMA.

 

 

Here’s his weird yet worthy replacement, in front of Zain’s Liquor:

Well, helloooo, Mr. Disco Collar with the soulful eyes!

Are these artifacts unique to San Francisco, or do other cities have them, too?

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For other examples of folk-art advertising signs, see my post about muffler men.

Word of the Week: Rampture

Rampture: The traffic congestion that’s expected to ensue after the closing of Wilshire Boulevard on- and offramps to (the) northbound I-405 on Los Angeles’s Westside. Rampture is a humorous blend of ramp and rapture; in certain Christian belief systems (the) rapture represents the “carrying away” of believers after Jesus’ return to Earth.

Some background: Over the coming year, all eight Wilshire ramps will be replaced as part of the $1 billion I-405 Sepulveda Pass Improvement Project. Last year, work on the project required the temporary shutdown of 11 miles of freeway, an event that gave rise to another religiously themed coinage, Carmagaddon. (The work went smoothly, and the predicted apocalypse failed to materialize.)

This year’s ramp closings are a much bigger deal, according to most sources. Here’s the lede from a May 11 post, “The Rampture on the 405 is Real and It Starts June 22,” on Curbed LA:

The Westside and Valley are just about to prove how far they'll go for a carpool lane on the northbound 405. LA County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky's blog announced today that the Rampture ramp closures will commence June 22, and they will continue to inflict pain on the Wilshire Boulevard access to the 405 over the next year.

Yaroslavsky does not use “Rampture” in his discussions of the closures. (His being Jewish may or may not be a reason.) He prefers the more secular, rock-’n’-roll-tinged “Ramp Jam.”

UCLA Today, a generally even-toned publication that covers faculty and staff news, did use “Rampture” in the headline of a May 18 story about the ramp demolition, which is taking place in the university’s neighborhood. The article quoted Bruce Taylor, a UCLA professor in urban planning and director of the Institute for Transportation Studies:

“It would be easier if we could just shut everything down,” Taylor said. “Instead, we have to do this while we’re still moving 300,000 vehicles through there a day. ... There are going to be incredible delays.”

Dave Karwaski, UCLA’s senior associate director of transportation, told UCLA Today: “It’s a good time to take a vacation.”

You can follow the progress of the Sepulveda Pass work via Los Angeles County’s dedicated Twitter feed, @I_405.

A New Look for Wordworking

Big changes over at my business website, Wordworking: new design, new content, easier navigation. I’ve added a section on what to expect during the naming process, and I’ve created a handy guide to some of my most popular blog posts.

Big thanks go to ace designer Mark Landkamer of Landkamer Partners; super-smart, super-fast programmer Jay Cornell; and nonpareil copyeditor Elissa Rabellino. Hire them for your own projects!

And as long as I’m promoting myself, I hope you’ll vote for  Fritinancy in the Top Language Professional Blog 2012 contest! Voting ends at midnight, German time, on Monday, May 28.

Let's Have Another-er

My post earlier this week about Hipmunk’s “funner-er” ad prompted a couple of readers to contribute other examples of super-superlative coinages in advertising.

From HildebrandBurke, a new Twitter friend, I learned about KFC Australia’s recent “Goodest Get Together” promotion, an extension of the international “So Good” slogan. The agency, Ogilvy, went a little nuts inventing new words for this explanatory video:

 

 

“You simply take a good thing, emgooden it, and voilà—you’ve made it gooderer, as in ‘That’s the gooderest thing I’ve ever tasted!’”

Yeah, it’s pretty silly*, but even sillier (sillierest?) is the utter absence of brand referents. No food, no restaurants, no happy customers—what’s the deal? And why should I care?

Here in the U.S., reader Jenne reported seeing a store promotion that used the slogan “Make it creamier-er-er.” “Sadly,” Jenne wrote, “this explosion of ‘er’ did not make me remember what the product was.”

It was Kraft Natural Shredded Cheese.  

 

Now, I understand that advertisers are constantly looking for new ways to say “superlative.” And I certainly don’t have a problem with wordplay and word invention. But I’m tired of the copycatting. When Android used “funner-er” back in 2008, it got attention. Then, in 2010, a bunch of companies hopped on the bandwagon: BlackBerry used “closer-er,” Captain Morgan used “delicious-er,” and Old Spice coined “fresherer” and “freshershist” [sic!]. Last year Maker’s Mark tried to sell us on “Maker’s-er.” Now Hipmunk is recycling “funner-er.”

It’s getting, shall we say, tedious-er.

Sticking an -er or an -est on an adjective doesn’t tell me you’re creative. It’s no longer a way to stand out from the competition. All it says is that you’re too lazy to do some truly original thinking about what your brand means.

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* I give partial credit to “emgooden,” but it’s not as good as  “embiggen,” whose coinage is usually attributed to “Simpsons” writer Dan Greaney, who used it in a 1996 episode. In fact, the first citation for “embiggen” appeared in 1884.

More Campaign Lingo 2012

Part 2 of my lexicon of presidential-campaign buzzwords—guillotine to super PAC—was published today on the Visual Thesaurus. You’ll have to subscribe to read it (and Part 1), and of course I hope you will. Meanwhile, here’s an outtake from the column, cut to keep the list to an even dozen:

Meh. The monosyllabic expression of disappointment has been used for the Republican contest in general and especially for candidate Romney, who has failed to generate much enthusiasm among voters. Punning on the candidate’s name, reporters and humorists started referring to “Meh Romney.” (There’s even a Tumblr blog where you can download a Meh Romney poster.) Meh was popularized by a 1995 episode of “The Simpsons” (“Lisa’s Wedding”), but Visual Thesaurus executive producer Ben Zimmer has traced it further back to a Yiddish source.

Read the rest of Campaign Lingo 2012: Part 2!