Evil Ad-Speak

Y’know how you sometimes run into maddeningly overused cliches in advertising?

For example, when was the last time you read a restaurant menu that described something as being made with "tomatoes"? That’s it: just "tomatoes."

I’m betting it’s been a while.

For Madisson Avenue has apparently decided that the word "tomatoes" cannot go unaccompanied. It must be chaperoned by two adjectives.

And not just any two adjecives. Saying "juicy, delicious tomatoes" ain’t enough. It has to be two specific adjectives: "red" and "ripe."

Yes, that’s right. Because of some evil adman sitting, cackling in his office somewhere, you now can no longer pick up a menu with a straight-forward description of a food as being made with "tomoatoes." It has to be "red ripe tomatoes."

Every.

Single.

Dang.

Time.

And that’s not the only ubiquitous advertising cliche. How about "farm fresh eggs," which is likely justifiable only in the sense that the eggs were at one time on a farm (likely an industrial farm) and they were at that time fresh. Now, they’ve been in cold storage for who knows how long, yet the evil adman wants you to believe that they have been whisked to your table fresh from under the hinder of Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm’s favorite laying hen.

Restaurants aren’t the only place that use such deceptive cliches. How about when you’re at the end of a TV episode and the announcer tells you to watch some clips from next week’s "all new!" episode, despite the fact that next week’s episode is a clip show!

AAAAARGH!

<hyperbole>I think it’s time for Madison Avenue to get an "all new" vocabulary before I give an evil adman such a thumping with my "farm fresh" fists that he becomes a "red ripe" pulp.</hyperbole>

Share your own evil ad cliches in the comments box.

Actually, That Warn't Me

A reader writes:

I watched the Luther movie last week and then heard your comments on it during the CA show last week.

You made a comment when Tetzel said ‘ that for money, he would forgive any man who ravaged the virgin Mary herself.’ that Tetzel probably never said that.

You were right.   It was Martin Luther who said it.

In his book Table Talk (1569), section CCCCLI, Luther writes "Had one ravished the Virgin Mary, or crucified Christ anew, the pope would, for money, have pardoned him."

Much obliged for the primary source!

Actually, though, it warn’t me who said that. It was Mr. Decent Films, Steven Greydanus. (You can tell when it’s him speaking on the show ’cause he dasn’t use words like "warn’t.")

To tell you the truth, I remembered reading Luther alluding to one ravishing the Virgin Mary, but I couldn’t remember in what context he was using the phrase in. Even when a devout Protestant, I found his very use of the phrase repulsive. Don’t know if it was a phrase he used a lot or just in this case. Also don’t know if it was unique to him or if others of his age also used it.

I do know that Luther was regarded as a remarkably crude fellow by other in his day.

You should see some of the cartoons he had drawn.

(Maybe I’ll scan them and post them sometime.)

Actually, That Warn’t Me

A reader writes:

I watched the Luther movie last week and then heard your comments on it during the CA show last week.

You made a comment when Tetzel said ‘ that for money, he would forgive any man who ravaged the virgin Mary herself.’ that Tetzel probably never said that.

You were right.   It was Martin Luther who said it.

In his book Table Talk (1569), section CCCCLI, Luther writes "Had one ravished the Virgin Mary, or crucified Christ anew, the pope would, for money, have pardoned him."

Much obliged for the primary source!

Actually, though, it warn’t me who said that. It was Mr. Decent Films, Steven Greydanus. (You can tell when it’s him speaking on the show ’cause he dasn’t use words like "warn’t.")

To tell you the truth, I remembered reading Luther alluding to one ravishing the Virgin Mary, but I couldn’t remember in what context he was using the phrase in. Even when a devout Protestant, I found his very use of the phrase repulsive. Don’t know if it was a phrase he used a lot or just in this case. Also don’t know if it was unique to him or if others of his age also used it.

I do know that Luther was regarded as a remarkably crude fellow by other in his day.

You should see some of the cartoons he had drawn.

(Maybe I’ll scan them and post them sometime.)

"Fish" Fridays

A reader writes:

I got hit by the old line that eating fish was related to boosting the fishing industry.  The sad thing was the guy said he heard if from a seminarian.  I went to EWTN and looked at some posts but wasn’t real happy with what I saw there.

Do you have (at Catholic Answers) or on some simple but documented history of eating fish?

This is one of those things that is hard to verify because of how backwards the situation is. Every year people claim that eating fish on Fridays was introduced to help the Italian fishing industry, but nobody ever comes up with primary source documents to estabish this.

It seems to me that the burden of proof is on the people making this claim. Unless they can produce an original source document saying this, it isn’t worth giving any credence to.

I say the burden of proof is on them because I don’t believe the claim (I think it’s a myth), and the burden of proof is always on the person you disagree with.

It seems to me that the following is far more likely to account for the situation:

  1. Church law is written in Latin.
  2. In Latin the thing we are forbidden to eat on (today certain) Fridays is carnis.
  3. In Latin, carnis means the flesh of warm-blooded, land-dwelling animals.
  4. Since people couldn’t eat carnis, they looked for things similar to carnis to eat on Fridays.
  5. Tofu burgers not having been introduced in the West, people started eating fish.
  6. The practice of eating fish became widespread.
  7. People who didn’t know Latin started looking for an explanation of why fish is eaten but not the flesh of land animals.
  8. The sinful streak in human nature made them want to attribute some kind of self-interested motive to the Church in allowing fish.
  9. Somebody noticed that forbidding meat on Fridays would have the effect of economically benefitting the fishing industry.
  10. Somebody attributed the allowance of fish to an attempt by the pope to economically benefit the finishing industry.
  11. The rumor spread far and wide because people still have a sinful streak whereby they want to attribute selfish motives to others and, in particular, to the pope.

If there were a requirement that people eat fish on Friday (there ain’t) then one would have a better case for the fishing-industry story, but in the absence of a requirement or any primary source document to the contrary, the above seems to me to be the more likely way to account for the matter.

“Fish” Fridays

A reader writes:

I got hit by the old line that eating fish was related to boosting the fishing industry.  The sad thing was the guy said he heard if from a seminarian.  I went to EWTN and looked at some posts but wasn’t real happy with what I saw there.

Do you have (at Catholic Answers) or on some simple but documented history of eating fish?

This is one of those things that is hard to verify because of how backwards the situation is. Every year people claim that eating fish on Fridays was introduced to help the Italian fishing industry, but nobody ever comes up with primary source documents to estabish this.

It seems to me that the burden of proof is on the people making this claim. Unless they can produce an original source document saying this, it isn’t worth giving any credence to.

I say the burden of proof is on them because I don’t believe the claim (I think it’s a myth), and the burden of proof is always on the person you disagree with.

It seems to me that the following is far more likely to account for the situation:

  1. Church law is written in Latin.
  2. In Latin the thing we are forbidden to eat on (today certain) Fridays is carnis.
  3. In Latin, carnis means the flesh of warm-blooded, land-dwelling animals.
  4. Since people couldn’t eat carnis, they looked for things similar to carnis to eat on Fridays.
  5. Tofu burgers not having been introduced in the West, people started eating fish.
  6. The practice of eating fish became widespread.
  7. People who didn’t know Latin started looking for an explanation of why fish is eaten but not the flesh of land animals.
  8. The sinful streak in human nature made them want to attribute some kind of self-interested motive to the Church in allowing fish.
  9. Somebody noticed that forbidding meat on Fridays would have the effect of economically benefitting the fishing industry.
  10. Somebody attributed the allowance of fish to an attempt by the pope to economically benefit the finishing industry.
  11. The rumor spread far and wide because people still have a sinful streak whereby they want to attribute selfish motives to others and, in particular, to the pope.

If there were a requirement that people eat fish on Friday (there ain’t) then one would have a better case for the fishing-industry story, but in the absence of a requirement or any primary source document to the contrary, the above seems to me to be the more likely way to account for the matter.

Legion Clubhouse

A reader writes:


I couldn’t resist…


…showing off my homemade Legion clubhouse. Finely crafted from a Quaker
oatmeal canister and, if my old comics are any indication, it’s correctly
proportioned. (I assume they’re all outside because Bouncing Boy is already inside.)


Love your site.

Legion_clubhouse

Kewl!

That’s just what the original Legion’s clubhouse looked like! (I.e., a rocket accident.) Good work!

Kudos on the action figure collection, too!

Canon Blawging

For several days I’ve been meaning to link to a couple of pieces on Ed Peters’ canon blawg, In Light Of The Law.

Ideally, I’d like to do two separate posts linking to Ed’s two most recent blog entries. Unfortunately, like I did when I first started blogging, Ed is doing a hand-coded blog that does not have permalinks, so I can’t.

(Hint, hint, Ed! Automated blogs are much better! And will get you more traffic by making it easier for folks to link to you–among other things. I’ll even help you convert yours over to automated form if you’ll let me!)

Anyhoo, here’s what’s up on the good Dr.’s canon blawg:

1) There’s been a lot of silly talk about the pope being forced to resign. Can’t be done. Shouldn’t be done. And Ed has some great commentary on the subject.

2) Apropo of papal succession, turns out that one cardinal thought to have the ability to vote in the next conclave had lied about his age (to the tune of five years) and was actually over the cutoff age for cardinals being able to vote in papal elections. Fortunately, the guy outed himself before the time came, but the thought of an ineligible papal elector participating in a conclave ought to give everyone the willies.

GET THE STORIES.

Chupacabra Question

A reader writes:

Hey Jimmy – I pretty regularly frequent your blog (and
voted for it as well), but I must get something
cleared up right now: I hope I wasn’t just being
gullible when I accepted your chupacabra blog as a
real story. I took it as fact, but now am not sure if
that was one of your tongue-in-cheek articles. I
forwarded that link to some of my friends who are
laughing at me. They say it’s like something out of
those zany tabloids that doctored up the pictures with
computer modifications. Am I this naive? Please tell
me if that whole thing was a hoax. I told them I got
it from a credible source.

FIRST, HERE’S THE LINK TO THE ORIGINAL POST.

This was definitely not a hoax, at least not on my part. Whenever I do a tongue-in-cheek post, I try to signal what I’m doing by dragging the (fictional) newspaper The Daily Planet into it. If I attribute something to the Daily Planet, that’s the signal that I’m doing humor. Thus, for example, I may run a real press story at the top of a post and then have a Daily Planet comment on it at the bottom.

If there is a hoax in this case, it’s on me, too, but I don’t have evidence at this point that there is a hoax. I always do due diligence to try to verify what I’m reporting from multiple sources. I don’t usually link all the sources I check, but check several of several different types.

In this case, the first page I linked was to a story hosted on the web page of the San Antonio NBC affiliate WOAI (Channel 4) (and its sister radio station of the same name), which is a real station listed in the yellow pages.

That story contained these pictures:

Chupacabra2

These images are confirmatory to the other images linked.

The second page I linked was to Linda Moulton Howe’s web page. Linda Moulton Howe is a reporter who has reported on the weird for years and who spoke to some of the individuals who were involved in one of the incidents. She also provides copious (graphic) pictures that seem excessive if someone was doing a hoax and that certainly look like a real creature.

Others are also taking this seriously.

So while I can’t tell you that I’ve seen the thing with my own eyes, I can say that I’ve done my best to verify that the things are real live dead critters that got shot in a couple of towns in Texas.

Whether it’s the basis of the chupacabra legend, I couldn’t tell you, but it is weird looking.

MORE INFO (AND PICTURES) HERE.

Seven Churches Visitation

A reader writes:

As a child I remember going to seven churches on Holy Thursday evening to
visit the Blessed Sacrament.  Can you explain the origin and significance
of this practice to me.  Is is still being done today?

I don’t have a lot of detail on this, but it apparently is a custom has been practiced in different places. I have evidence that it is a Polish Catholic custom, though it is also shared by other ethnicities, such as Italians.

Common sense would suggest that it may also be an urban custom (cities having the abundances of churches needed for folks to do this) compared to a rural custom (where churches are fewer & farther between).

There’s info on it and other Polish customs ON THIS PAGE.

It also appears to have been mentioned on a Knights of Columbus Page that has moved or is no longer on the web. That page stated:

The Altar of Repose

When the Eucharist is processed to the altar of repose after the Mass of Lord’s Supper, we should remain in quiet prayer and adoration, keeping Christ company. There is a tradition, particularly in big cities with many parishes, to try and visit seven churches and their altar of repose during this evening.

As to whether it is still practiced, according to the Denver Catholic Register, it is:

To this day, Italians customarily visit seven churches for Eucharistic adoration on Holy Thursday night, a reflection of the ancient pilgrimage practice of visiting seven Roman basilicas to obtain the plenary indulgence. Austrians light bonfires on Holy Saturday night to welcome the light of the risen Lord [LINK].

Perhaps others can comment with their knowledge of the custom.

Ashes, Ashes, All Fall Down

A correspondent writes:

How long does one leave the ashes from the Ash Wednesday service on ones forehead?

Is it wrong to wipe them off?

It is not wrong to wipe them off.

As far as how long one leaves them on, there is no standard answer. It is a matter of your choice.

As a matter of public witness, I would recommend that you leave them on until you are done going out in public on Ash Wednesday.

I would defintely wipe them off by the morning of the Thursday following Ash Wednesday.