Tuesday, November 01, 2011
Linguistic efficiency
Bought a box of Fab laundry detergent; not my usual brand but it was the only small box available at WalMart. Small is important when you're walking.
On the lid it says:
Concentrated USE 40% LESS - MENOS
Now that's efficient! They took advantage of English/Spanish cognates, and replaced only the word that wasn't a cognate. Especially nice that they concentrated the language by 40% to describe a detergent that's concentrated by 40%.
English is Germanic in origin, but nearly half of our daily-use words come straight from Latin, a habit started by Shakespeare and continued by most word-coining writers since then. Result is that we share far more vocabulary with Spanish than with German or Swedish, and we find it easier to read Spanish without training. The other Germanic languages have spent the last 500 years building new words from internal roots, while we were building from Latin.
= = = = =
Few days later: The detergent also works better, so my brand loyalty has now switched. That makes two switches from lifelong brands in one year, both motivated by packaging. Earlier I changed from Maxwell House to Yuban coffee because Yuban was the only brand still available in cans; now from Cheer to Fab detergent because Fab is the only brand still available as powder in a small box. Most coffee and detergent brands are now using round plastic containers with handles, which are completely impractical. You can't use a scoop in the plastic coffee 'can', and liquid detergent is wasteful and gloppy when spilled. Also, how in the hell does it count as Green when you change from cardboard to plastic? Cardboard is made from renewable trees, while plastic is made from finite oil. Doesn't make sense. ¶ 11:55 AM
On the lid it says:
Concentrated USE 40% LESS - MENOS
Now that's efficient! They took advantage of English/Spanish cognates, and replaced only the word that wasn't a cognate. Especially nice that they concentrated the language by 40% to describe a detergent that's concentrated by 40%.
English is Germanic in origin, but nearly half of our daily-use words come straight from Latin, a habit started by Shakespeare and continued by most word-coining writers since then. Result is that we share far more vocabulary with Spanish than with German or Swedish, and we find it easier to read Spanish without training. The other Germanic languages have spent the last 500 years building new words from internal roots, while we were building from Latin.
= = = = =
Few days later: The detergent also works better, so my brand loyalty has now switched. That makes two switches from lifelong brands in one year, both motivated by packaging. Earlier I changed from Maxwell House to Yuban coffee because Yuban was the only brand still available in cans; now from Cheer to Fab detergent because Fab is the only brand still available as powder in a small box. Most coffee and detergent brands are now using round plastic containers with handles, which are completely impractical. You can't use a scoop in the plastic coffee 'can', and liquid detergent is wasteful and gloppy when spilled. Also, how in the hell does it count as Green when you change from cardboard to plastic? Cardboard is made from renewable trees, while plastic is made from finite oil. Doesn't make sense. ¶ 11:55 AM
