First, most of what we call “news” today starts out as a press release, which then becomes a headline, a sound-bite, and eventually a story. In a parallel to the way government operates, in which special interest groups lobby to create or defeat legislation, most of our news stories come as a result of PR efforts paid for by special interest groups (businesses) who have a stake in what becomes “news.” (I’d love to come up with a taxonomy of stories by type just to show how few types there really are but that’s a different point.)
Second, reporters like to ask good questions for which there may not be good answers. However, they’ll force an answer because you can’t say “nobody knows.”
The third is that everybody loves numbers, regardless of where they come from, and these are the best kind of answers, regardless of whether the numbers are true. –Dale Dougherty —How News is Made (Boing Boing)
A good deconstruction of the ubiquitous Thanksgiving holiday shopping story.
How long have people been calling the day after Thanksgiving “Black Friday”? I don’t think I ever heard that term before this season. (I’m always grading papers anyway, so perhaps that’s why I never pay attention to shopping stories during the Thanksgiving break.)
Post was last modified on 6 Oct 2017 2:38 pm
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Various characters in Shakespeare call a "pox" on such things a drum and wrinkles, so I hardly think Americans invented the phenomenon you describe.
Microwaves came into domestic use in America during the Cold War. I recall there being considerable uncertainty and uneasiness regarding the nature of microwaves themselves.
I'm not saying that the domestication of "nuke" is somehow a conscious reaction against US military history. Most of those who use the word "nuke" for "microwave" weren't alive during WWII, and may be more conscious of nuclear power plants, but the connotations of words are fluid.
"Lousy" is retro and cute today, but it used to conjure up the offensive image of something "full of lice." Consider also the fluidity of words such as "queer," "bitch," or "n*gger," which when applied by the mainstream community are terms of insult, but in certain cases within certain communities can be a bonding term.
Word of the day: "coventrate," a word coined by the Germans in WWII, which meant "bombed as severely as Coventry," but which was used patriotically and defensively by the British.
Would this bear any similarity to the use of "nuking" to refer to microwaving food? Is it just my imagination or is this trivialization of tragedy and language a peculiarly American phenomenon? For those who have visited Hiroshima it just sounds crass. It would be like using the neologism "Auschwitzing" to refer to caregivers denying a child a meal as a minor punishment. Imagine the outrage that would cause!
I should have guessed that since I had to take two accounting classes. I was also trying to be funny, but thank you for clearing that up.
Neha, that rings a bell.
Lou, "Black Friday" is actually related to the accounting world. After Thanksgiving, when shopping sky-rocketed, businesses would record transactions in black ink, which meant they were going in for a profit. Red ink meant losses.
And then there's "Cyber Monday" -- the ONLINE holiday shopping day hot on the heels of Thanksgiving weekend. Though it is something of a myth, I think the online shops are buying into it. See: http://www.businessweek.com/bwdaily/dnflash/nov2005/nf20051129_9946_db016.htm
I thought the same thing, Dr. Jerz. I've heard of Black Tuesday and the stock market, but applying that title to a shopping day? It sounds a bit dramatic.
Basically it's called Black Friday because it can make a business go up or down..that and its the "darkest" day of the year because of all the muggings, fights, and pillagings stores see.