In just four months, Lorri Johnston has quickly proven her worth to AMD, tackling the issues the rest of us are afraid to address. Just this morning, in fact, between mouthfuls of leftover Halloween candy (thoughtfully provided by our good friends at ILF Media), she contemplated the lowly Milk Dud.

“Why,” she asked, “would you name something so delicious a dud?”

Truly, I felt as if I were in the presence of a Zen master—for this was no simple question, but a kōan meant to provoke the “great doubt.” She was testing me.

A quick glance in my American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language merely reinforced the paradox:

dud  n.  1.  A bomb, shell, or explosive round that fails to detonate.  2.  Informal One that is disappointingly ineffective or unsuccessful.

Clearly, further meditation was needed. On to Wikipedia:

According to the manufacturer, the word “Milk” in the name refers to the large amount of milk in the product; the use of “Dud” came about because the original aim of having a perfectly round piece was found to be impossible.

So the Milk Dud is both a failure and a tasty treat! My analytic intellect is exhausted, my will spent; I am one step closer to enlightenment.

posted by: Aaron Bragg  |  category: random thoughts  |  make a comment

I’m often asked whether my job is as glamorous as it sounds. “What’s it really like,” people ask, “to be part of a highly creative team that regularly challenges the status quo with arresting design and provocative copy?”

Until alert reader “Spimbi” sent along this Dilbert cartoon, I’ve been unable to adequately answer that.

posted by: Aaron Bragg  |  category: the design life the writing life  |  make a comment

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posted by: Aaron Bragg  |  category: random thoughts  |  make a comment

Feel like you’re geting the rough end of the pineapple? Don’t worry—you may yet land with your bum in the butter. These and other delicious food idioms are chronicled over at The Guardian‘s Word of Mouth blog.

posted by: Aaron Bragg  |  category: the writing life  |  make a comment

My daughter told me a joke the other day:

“Knock, knock.”
“Who’s there?”
“To.”
“To who?”
“To whom.”

Pretty good, right? Of course, you have to actually care about the distinction between who and whom to think it’s funny. Which brings us to this post over at The Economist‘s website, one of the points of which is that “[t]he unease over whom just makes people avoid it more.”

For you geeks out there, it’s who for subjects, whom for objects. But most of us don’t want to get all that involved with determining subjects and objects—including me. So I just stick to a rule I first learned from William F. Buckley, Jr.: follow a preposition with whom (to whom, by whom, for whom, et al.). Use who everywhere else. Seems to work.

posted by: Aaron Bragg  |  category: the writing life  |  make a comment

One more post about Facebook, then I’m done. For reals.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=AkH2coBaQUQ

Try to watch this without laughing. Go on—I dare you. It’s a bit cheeky coming from a company that lost $50 billion in share value in a little over three months, don’t you think?

But what’s worse is the grandiosity of it all. Does Facebook really think it’s the only thing that stands between us and a “vast” and “dark” universe? “We make the tools and services that allow people to feel human, get together, open up,” explains head of consumer marketing Rebecca Van Dyck. C’mon. Who honestly believes that? (Besides Wieden & Kennedy, the ad agency that foisted this bombastic load of navel-gazing codswallop on us.)

The seriousness with which this company takes itself is mind-boggling. But I think it’s really just a larger symptom of the way in which agencies and design firms—and their clients—have come to fetishize brand. It’s not enough to have a billion people actively using your product (which in and of itself is a truly remarkable feat); no, you’ve got to get all metaphysical on us. Hey Facebook: You’re a social networking site. That’s all. Now, go earn your shareholders some money.

posted by: Aaron Bragg  |  category: random thoughts  |  make a comment

Should dictionaries tell you how language should be used? Or should they simply report on language as it’s actually being used?

While in general I prefer a prescriptivist (the “how” party) approach, it seems that there’s certainly room for compromise. Over at The Weekly Standard—in an article chock full of awesome word geekery—David Skinnner agrees, and reveals the “spirited prejudices” of both sides.

posted by: Aaron Bragg  |  category: the writing life  |  make a comment

In a letter to his mother, T. E. Lawrence (Lawrence of Arabia) extolled the virtues of a good book:

“…if you can get the right book at the right time you taste joys—not only bodily, physical, but spiritual also, which pass one out above and beyond one’s miserable self, as it were through a huge air, following the light of another man’s thought. And you can never be quite the old self again.”

Hard to imagine him waxing so passionate about a Kindle.

posted by: Aaron Bragg  |  category: the writing life  |  make a comment