New Rules: English language edition

 

New Rules: English language edition

      

It's been a while since I vented my semi-perpetual displeasure at the gross abuses of language (and other things). Accordingly, here are some recent peeves:

"'Nother." What the hell is a "nother? I recently saw and heard Jeff Foxworthy, a smart guy who, I suspect, speaks really good English out of character. His recent Golden Corral (all you can eat feeding trough /restaurant) commercial features the $1.29 take home box which, ole Jeff is quick to remind us, holds "a whole nother meal!"

I realize that fans who find Larry the Cable guy amusing actually know what he means because those toothless morons speak that way too. Foxworthy, former IBM employee and the guy who hosted "Are you Smarter than a Fifth Grader" and actually is, doesn't have to dumb it down to that level, does he?

Alphabet parity. In standard English, by actual analysis of a 40,000-word sample, the letter "E" is used almost 1/8 of the time, while "X", "Q", "J", and "Z" appear less than .0012 of the time. For the math challenged, that’s roughly 171 times as many "E"s as the bottom four. This ratio, common to essentially all English prose, is chucked out of the bus, however, if you are naming new drugs with catchy names for which consumers will beg their doctor by name. Forget the side effects which would scare any sane person if they bothered to read them. It's the name which hooks 'em and lands them. Use those Zs, Qs, Xs and Js, boys, we got plenty. I mean, doesn't "Zyprexa" just sound sexier than "olanzapine" that's what Zyprexa is, after all.

Closely related to this name game is the shameless "hook 'em" and reel 'em in" nature of much modern drug advertising. Probably the worst offender recently is a brand new drug (one of several) for treating a certain type of lung cancer. It features the words "Live Longer" projected on the sides of buildings in an urban setting. The drug's cute sounding name is "Opdivo” (Op as in optimistic, optimum, etc). So much sexier than nivolumab. There is a similar drug called "Keytruda." The adverts claim, and there is no reason to doubt, that test subjects with a 6-month prognosis lived an average of 9.2 months. Of course, everyone wants to live longer and, believe you me, Squibb and Merck really, really want you to! Know why? Because if you are on this drug protocol, even if it eventually fails for you, the 12-week initial phase will cost you (or someone) $141,000! If you stay on the protocol, look forward to $250,000 (yeah, that's a quarter of a mil) for the year. Opdivo has been recently approved in the UK. Wanna bet no one there pays that much for it?

Next rant: If you produce a drug, its initial cost should reflect your cost. There's no justification for subsequently jacking the price of a commonly prescribed drug to soak the consumer in the last years before the drug goes off patent. I'm not talking about our friend, Turing and its now incarcerated former CEO Martin Shkreli and his attempted price hike of a 62-year-old drug. He just got caught.

Eli Lilly, a major player, unlike Turing, has been guilty of similar practices with the much more widely prescribed and anti-psychotic, Zyprexa. As the years have passed and the 20-year patent protection waned, Lilly has jacked up the price of Zyprexa in increments, not because it cost more to make (it didn't, and we'll see just how little it really costs in a bit) but because they could, and without any sort of regulatory authority to call bullshit, insurers passed it along to the consumer. In 1996, Zxprexa cost $188 for a one-month supply. In 2003, Lilly raised that to $292. In 2006 the price jumped again to $368. In 2011, just before Lilly's patent lapsed, Zyprexa was priced at around $650 for a month's prescription. In 2012, patent having lapsed, a month's dose of generic olanzapine (exactly the same as Zyprexa) could be purchased using a printable coupon at our local Walmart for $10.90! Today (2023) olanzapine can be purchased at several local supermarket pharmacies for under $20. Surprisingly, the same 5mg 30 tablet prescription costs (with coupon) $118 at CVS Pharmacy, while other local sources are all in the $11 to $17 dollar range. Wouldn't it be interesting to know why the exact same drug costs 1100% more at 2 stores less than 1 mile apart?

Please stop using the word "hack" for everything you do in some slightly different manner. Maybe it's just me but changing your eating habits isn't a "life hack," it's just changing your eating habits. The word's original connotation conveyed some degree of brilliance and innovative thought, The things I see (admittedly, mostly on social media) styled as "Life Hacks" are almost never even clever, not to mention definitely not brilliant. I mean "lipstick hacks!" Really?

Finally, for now, I'm sick to death of "Organic" being ballyhooed as if any other method of farming was Satanic. First off cow manure is organic, it is also responsible for recent e-coli contamination of lettuce and celery crops. Know what doesn't do that? Chemical fertilizers which provide just the specific elements all plants need to thrive. By definition in chemistry, "organic" refers to compounds containing carbon, period. In food scamming it has come to mean  "More expensive because we have convinced you it is somehow better for you."

 There are things worth looking for in food, such as "non GMO" (the probable source of increased numbers of folks who are gluten intolerant is the widely increased amounts of GMO wheat commercially produced.) But "organic milk? Please! The only milk in the bovine world is organic, since the cow's body filters everything else non-essential to producing it. This is the same scam as the numerous "Toxin" cleanses. You know what actually does remove toxins for free? Your liver and kidneys. Interestingly enough you won't find "toxins" actually defined in these scam products. 

OK I'm better  for now.