Fauxpology

If someone offers up a fauxpology, they aren’t apologizing at all.  What they are doing is making a statement that sounds like an apology without expressing any of the emotion that goes with a sincere apology and where there is no acknowledgement of any wrongdoing on their part.

In other words, whereas an apology is when someone expresses remorse or regret for something that was said or done that harmed one or more people, a fauxpology is a “false” (because the word faux in French means false) apology or, rather, an anti-apology that excuses what was said or done by the offending party that harmed one or more people.

Think of a fauxpology when you hear someone say, “Sorry, not sorry.”  That is a fauxpology.

A fauxpology is sometimes also referred to as a nopology or a manpology, although in the case of a manpology, Idiomation has found evidence of people from either gender offering up fauxpologies, so to refer to a fauxpology as a manpology is misleading. In a few instances a fauxpology has also been referred to as a past exonerate however that has been in more academic settings.

Canadian linguist, Laura Beaudin Lakhian who holds a Master of Science degree in the Cognitive Science of Language from McMaster University even has a website dedicated to the topic, titled Fauxpolo.gy where she shares her deconstruction of very public apologies using critical discourse analysis and the speech act theory.

In January 2021, there was an uproar about a product named The Mahjong Line.  When the backlash for the company hit the fan, the company offered up a fauxpology for their mistake, and once again, they were called on their actions.

Arizona State University newspaper reporter, Marshall Terrill interviewed Dawn Gilpin, associate professor at ASU’s Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communications for a piece published the ASU News on 6 December 2017.  The interview was published as a Q&A piece and took a close look at what was going on with public apologies made by public people in the media.  As part of the introduction, he wrote:

The types of “fauxpologies” can backfire with audiences as Americans contemplate the damage caused by public figures facing harassment claims.

In response to being asked to provide a good example of an apology by a public figure, Ms. Gilpin responded that most apologies were terrible and vaue, and “stop[ped] short of verifying the truth of the allegations.”  She also stated:

This kind of “fauxpology” can backfire with audiences, especially on social media.

A few years earlier, on 13 September 2011 TODAY reporter Courtney Hazlett, reporting for NBC News, wrote that Madonna’s treatment of volunteers working the Toronto International Film Festival.  Allegedly she asked that they be made to turn their faces to a wall so they wouldn’t get a look at her as she made her way to her news conference about her film “W.E.”  In the news article, Courtney Hazlett wrote:

Stay tuned to see if Madonna gives the fans the faux-pology treatment the hydrangea received.

A year earlier, in Time magazine, in an article by Belinda Luscombe published on 20 October 2010 and titled, “Thank You, Ginni Thomas” the author wrote:

The old “sorry if I upset you” route is the go-to tactic of politicians, celebrities, media corporations and spouses for a reason. It looks and smells like an apology, but acknowledges no wrongdoing. It’s a fauxpology.

Jumping back another three years to 29 August 2007, The American Prospect (a 501(c)(3) nonprofit corporation headquartered in Washington, DC) published an article by former assistant web editor Sam Boyd titled, “Faux-Pology Watch.”  He described what a fauxpology was, and wrote about Larry Craig and his fauxpology.

With the hyphen between the word faux and the abbreviated word apology (which appears as pology), it appears this may be one of the earliest published uses of the word where the hyphen aided in the comprehension of the word.

Idiomation was unable to find an earlier published version of this word, and because of the hyphen and the year (2007), Idiomation is confident in believing the word was a very recent construct from around that year.  If, however, one of you has an earlier published news article or story or cartoon that uses the word fauxpology, please feel free to share this in the comments section below.

Overtourism

Overtourism describes a situation where there are so many tourists visiting an area that it damages the local environment, the attractions, and the tourist experience, thereby diminishing the quality of life for residents as well as visitors.

Undoubtedly there are some who will have a difficult time figuring out how that much tourism could happen, much less be perceived as a negative, but it does happen and it can be a negative.

It has become so much of a concern that the United Nations World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) with its membership of 156 countries, 6 territories, and over 500 affiliate members is actively encouraging tourist destinations implement the Global Code of Ethics for Tourism to guard against overtourism happening — or continuing to happen — in their area.

IMPORTANT SIDE NOTE 1: The roots for the UNWTO go back to 1925 when the first international congress of official tourist organizations was held at The Hague. In 1934, they created the International Union of Official Tourist Publicity Organizations (IUOTPO), and in 1974 the World Tourism Organization was established through the United Nations.

Although the term overtourism was popularized by the Internet travel website Skift in 2018, it was first used in 2002 to describe the dangers of exploitation of natural resources by J.G. Nelson who also wrote about this issue (without using the term overtourism) in 1993 in his paper Tourism and Sustainable Development: Monitoring, Planning, Management published by the University of Waterloo Press.

The term turismofobia appears in the Spanish media in 2017 however overtourism became the expression of choice.

In 2018, the word was added to the Oxford Dictionary as one of its words of the year following a campaign by the Telegraph Travel to have it recognized by the Oxford Dictionary.

Sealioning

If someone feigns civility and incessantly demands evidence from others to support their arguments in a discussion while at the same time refusing to produce evidence to support their own arguments in the same discussion, that person is sealioning.

Those who engage in sealioning aren’t interested in serious debate. They are interested in wasting other people’s time while appearing innocent and somewhat naive with regards to the topic at hand. Their questions are phrased in neutral terms with the intent of demonizing the other person.

You can identify sealioning relatively quickly as those who engage in this behavior would rather ask question after question without providing any answers themselves or offering an opinion. A cybermob following the person engaged in sealioning then jumps in to support the abusive behavior, throwing other questions at you, and bullying you into silence.

Why? Because when it comes to sealioning, mob rule is one of the key aspects of the activity. The purpose of sealioning is to harass the other person for reasons that are only known to the sealion and whoever is privy to the sealion‘s reasons for harassing the other person.

If you choose not to respond or you chose to stop responding to the person engaged in sealioning, you are then accused of realizing you are wrong but refusing to admit you are wrong.

One trait that stands out for those who engage in sealioning is the need for self-promotion and self-proclaimed expertise that may or may not have anything to do with the discussion at hand.

So what do you look out for if you suspect sealioning?

1. Incorrect statements are made without proof to substantiate the statements.
2. Cybermobbing tactics with two or more of the predators following suit.
3. Cruel and untrue ad hominem attacks on those who do not agree with them.
4. The need to be right at all costs even when they are provided with proof to the contrary.
5. Feigned offense for the sole purpose of discrediting and demonizing the other person.
6. Feigned politeness and courtesy in behavior and/or speech.

The first use of the word was on 19 September 2014 by cartoonist David Malki on Wondermark when he uploaded his cartoon, “The Terrible Sea Lion.”

Yes, sealioning is a very new expression so don’t tire it out.

Head-Desking

Pop culture hits again, this time with head-desking which is exactly what you think it is.  Someone faced with a situation that is frustrating and seemingly unsolvable can literally and figuratively lead to head-desking.  To head-desk is to reach a perceived impasse that causes the person to experience a level of frustration that is so intense that one feels it must literally be smacked out of one’s head to relieve the pressure.

NaNoWriMo author Zanzibar 7. Schwarznegger published “Veneri Verbum” through Chizzy Press in 2015 where the word head-desk was used as a verb.  The novel is listed in the humorous science fiction & fantasy category and tells the story of Christopher Cullum and the problems he experiences as a writer.

“I can hear your thoughts here. Third-person narrative, but thoughts are transparent.  Thoughts are pretty much as transparent as glass, clear as a summer day.  Why do you have to have so many terrible sayings in your head?”  She leaned over to head-desk against the wall a few times.

SIDE NOTE 1:  Zanzibar 7. Schwarznegger is the humor/satire writer of the Figment series and The Chronicles of the Bobian, and is said to live in the Pacific Northwest.  Little else seems to be known about the author.

The activity was mentioned by Charles J. Muir (who also has ties to NaNoWriMo) in his 2013 book, “Word Ninja” in the chapter titled, “Smashing Writer’s Block: It’s All About The Tools” which is part of the “Write Life” segment of the book.

Writer’s block.  It’s pernicious.  Its sources are many, as are its manifestations.  It may drive you to head desking, to obsessively playing videogames, to cleaning things that have not seen a dust cloth in decades.  But the defining characteristic is this – you want to write, you try to write, and you can’t.

Now head-desking should not be mistaken for desking (which is also a thing).  In fact, desking was used in the book “The Path That Led To Africa” written by Michael Longford (30 May 1928 – 2005), with a Foreword by Peter Bottomley, and published in 2003.  The word desking appears in Chapter 3 titled, “Westminster In The Country (1939 – 1945).”

On another occasion, I can not remember exactly what offence I had committed, but I was sentenced by the Head of  House to be ‘desked’ for three days.  I do not remember any other boy ever being given this punishment while I was at school.  ‘Desking’ consisted of being made to spend the whole of one’s leisure time at one’s desk.   No one was allowed to speak to the delinquent boy at his desk, and he was not allowed to speak to anyone else, except at mealtimes, and then only to ask his neighbour to pass some item of food which was not within his own reach.  Desking is not a punishment which fills an offender with contrition or a resolve to behave better in future.

SIDE NOTE 2:  The author’s father was Captain Terence Ackley Fitzmaurice Longford and his mother was Dr. Geraldine Nora Longford née Geary who married in 1920.  Michael Longford attended Westminster School and Oxford University, served in the Royal Signals, and joined the Colonial Administrative Service before moving on to being secretary to Lord Twining, Governor in Tanganyika which gained its independence from Britain in 1961.  After his retirement from the British Civil Service, Michael Longford continued to work in various positions including being a member of the UK Committee of UNICEF.

SIDE NOTE 3:  Three years after Tanganyika gained its independence from the British Commonwealth, it found itself embroiled in the Zanzibar Revolution of 1964 which overthrew the Sultan and his primarily Arab government.  Zanzibar merged with Tanganyika and became the nation of Tanzania.  The name was decided on by taking the first three letters of both countries and adding a suffix.

SIDE NOTE 4:  Michael Longford’s wife Jennifer May Longford née Stevenson (4 October 1929 – 5 March 2012) also had an interesting childhood.  Her mother, Frances Stevenson was the mistress of former British Prime Minister David Lloyd George (17 January 1863 – 26 March 1945) from 1912 (a year after she became governess to his daughter Megan in 1911) until they married in 1943, two years after the death of his first wife Margaret George née Owen (4 November 1864 – 20 January 1941).  Jennifer was 13 years old.

For years, there were rumors that Jennifer was the illegitimate daughter of Lloyd George’s political secretary, Lieutenant-Colonel Thomas Tweed (1 January 1890–30 April 1940).  However, when her mother died in 1972, Jennifer discovered a note written by her mother to Lloyd George months before her birth wherein her mother stated she suspected she was pregnant with his child.  Twice, Jennifer Longford considered DNA testing to confirm her father was Lloyd George, however, she never went through with it.   It is generally accepted that Lloyd George was undoubtedly her father.

SIDE NOTE 5:  Lieutenant-Colonel Thomas Tweed (1 January 1890–30 April 1940) was awarded the Military Cross in World War I and at the age of 26 was named the youngest lieutenant colonel in the British Army at the time. He became a political adviser to David Lloyd George from 1927 until Tweed’s death.

As interesting as all that is, head-desking appears to be a new expression over the last five years.  Idiomation was unable to find published versions of head-desk or head-desking earlier than 2012.  The repeat NaNoWriMo references and connections found while researching this entry seems to imply it’s because there’s not much more history to track.  We therefore peg this to 2010 to allow time for social media to move the word from obscurity to active verb status.

Dutch Reach

Idiomation came across the expression Dutch reach in an article published by CBC Manitoba on January 10, 2017. The article reported that St. Boniface (MB) councilor was promoting the Dutch reach as a way to fight collisions between bicyclists and parked motorists. The article read in part:

Allard has authored a motion asking the city to work with Manitoba Public Insurance to popularize the “Dutch reach,” a manoeuvre intended to ensure people in cars don’t fling open their doors and into the path of oncoming cyclists without warning.

It was a topic of discussion on the Road Bike Review website in September 2016 with some cyclists supporting the concept while others felt it wouldn’t reduce the number of door prizes cyclists get while cycling city streets.

IMPORTANT NOTE 1: A door prize is the colloquial expression for a traffic collision in which a cyclist is struck by a car door.

The practice was mentioned in Martine Power’s article for the Boston Globe on September 22, 2013. The practice was also mentioned in a New York Times article dated July 30, 2011 and written by contributing writer Russell Shorto.

The practice however was not called the Dutch reach in either of those article even though the practice has been the law in the Netherlands for decades.

In 2016, retired American physician Michael Charney named the practice the Dutch reach. After the death of a cyclist in Somerville (MA) in the summer of 2016, Michael Charney, in partnership with the Somerville Police Department, promoted the “Dutch Reach’’ on an electronic sign board that was positioned outside the city’s Veterans Memorial Rink

IMPORTANT NOTE 2: Dr. Michael Charney swapping driving a car for driving a bike in 1992, and has been an ardent cycling advocate in Cambridge (MA) over the years.

This means that the term Dutch reach is about six months old even, and mainstream media and politicians are already making use of the expression in articles about car doors and cyclists. Idiomation therefore pegs Dutch reach to 2016 as attributed to retired American physician Michael Charney.

UPDATE (2 November 2017):  Please read the additional information on this entry provided by Dr. Michael Charney or click HERE to be taken directly to this latest comment.

Dilly Ding, Dilly Dong

Lately you may have read or heard people saying dilly ding, dilly dong.  It’s an interesting idiom that expresses a celebratory feeling while underscoring focus and hard work leading to the celebration.  The history behind this is short and sweet.  It was coined by 64-year-old Claudio Ranieri.

In December 2015, the Italian manager spoke about the Leicester City Football Club (also known as The Foxes) officially qualifying for the EUFA Champions League — a championship that the club went on to win as they nabbed the Premier League title — and he used the term dilly ding, dilly dong.

Claudio Ranieri uttered the idiom dilly ding, dilly dong again in March 2015. and once again, to the delight of mainstream media, at a press conference on April 22, 2016.

Dilly ding, dilly dong! Come on!  You forget.  You forget.  You speak about blah-blah-blah.  But we are in the Champions League. Come on, man! Oh, it’s fantastic. Fantastic. Terrific.

The Foxes were an under-performing football club in 2010 when Vichai Srivaddhanaprabha bought the team.  Claudio Ranieri came on board in the summer of 2015 and led the team to victory months later.

However when he said dilly ding, dilly dong in 2015 and 2016, this wasn’t the first time Claudio Ranieri used the idiom.  Over his 30-year managerial career, dilly ding, dilly dong is a phrase he’s used often.  Originally, it was used as a lighthearted way of seriously underscoring the need for a wake-up call to members of the teams he managed, and it oftentimes led to positive results.

Idiomation adds dilly ding, dilly dong to the list of fun expressions we’ve researched, and we wish it a very long life.

Giving Tuesday

Right after Cyber Monday, there’s a new idiom being shopped around and  it’s called Giving Tuesday.

According to the Los Angeles Times of December 2, 2013 this is the second year that Giving Tuesday has made an appearance. It hasn’t quite caught on yet (in that it’s not a recognized buzz phrase yet) but people are doing their best to give charities a boost with this bit of marketing. The hope is for Giving Tuesday to become as big as Black Friday and Cyber Monday. The article stated in part:

Giving Tuesday, which will be held December 3, is a daylong national event designed to help charities raise money online.

In an article in USA Today written by Jon Ostendorff and published on December 1, 2013, the beginnings of Giving Tuesday were explained in this comment:

Giving Tuesday started last year as a charitable answer to the retail shopping days of Black Friday, Small Business Saturday and Cyber Monday with help from such big names as Sony and Microsoft.

This quickly pegs the idiom Giving Tuesday to November 2012 … no doubt about it!

Cyber Monday

After Black Friday and Small Business Saturday, retailers kick off the following week with Cyber Monday. Cyber Monday refers to the sales that can be had exclusively online and while many stores offer online savings on Black Friday and Small Business Saturday, Cyber Monday is just another one of those clever marketing ideas that seems to have popped up online in recent years.

Before Cyber Monday was successfully marketed, the Monday after Black Friday was the 12th busiest of the year … or in the top 3.5% for most profitable days.

A press release dated December 3, 2012 from PR Newswire Europe stated the following in part:

Cyber Monday is also called “Mega Monday” by some UK retailers. However, “Mega Monday” is a trademarked term of The Hut.com Limited. Cyber Monday is a generic term created by Shop.org in 2005. Today, nearly all U.S. Retailers hold Cyber Monday sales on the Monday following Thanksgiving and Black Friday. The term Cyber Monday is now used internationally by online stores in Australia, Canada, France, Germany and Portugal.

In the St. Petersburg Times newspaper dated November 25, 2006 Times Staff Writer, Mark Albright shared some insights into Cyber Monday in an article entitled, “Cyber Monday Mostly Hype, Experts Say.” In this article’s opening paragraph, he wrote:

Now that Black Friday is history, online retailers are bracing for their own version called Cyber Monday that kicks off in two days. In 2005, it was the busiest day of the year for online retailers, whose sites were jammed with 27.7 million unique site visits, according to Neilsen/Net Ratings.

The title of the article came from this quote in the article:

“Cyber Monday is more hype than reality,” Marshal Cohen, analyst for market research firm NPD Group, told the New York Times.

And the term can definitely be pegged to November 2005 with a news article by Robert D. Hof and published in Business Week on November 28, 2005 that begin with this paragraph:

Do a Google search on “Cyber Monday,” and you get as many as 779,000 results. Not a bad haul for a term that was created just a week and a half ago to describe the jump in online shopping activity following the U.S. Thanksgiving holiday. While Black Friday is the official kickoff of the traditional retail season, the story goes, online retail really takes off the following Monday.

The article also stated that the term was created during a brainstorming session where other variations were suggested and quickly discarded: Black Monday (too much like Black Friday), Blue Monday (not very cheery), and Green Monday (too environmentalist).

That being said, the idea kicked around for a year before the label Cyber Monday surfaced, according to Shmuel Gniwisch, chief executive of the online jewelry site Ice.com. Shmuel Gniwisch claimed in the Business Week article that in 2004 Shop.org sent an email to member retailers suggesting that online retailers needed to come up with a marketing hook of their own to compete with Black Friday.

Idiomation pegs the idiom to November 2005 with a nod to the year it took to come up with the label that stuck: Cyber Monday.

Brown Thursday

If you’re wondering about Brown Thursday, wonder no longer as it’s the latest idiom hooked into the Black Friday mythos. Brown Thursday is supposedly the shopping day before Black Friday. In other words, Brown Thursday is the day formerly known as American Thanksgiving.

On November 28, 2013, CBS Pittsburgh posted an article to their website entitled, “Brown Thursday Shoppers Line Up To Cash In On Deals.” The article began with this paragraph:

Shoppers looking for bargains set their alarms for 6 a.m. when some stores like Kmart opened for Brown Thursday.

Even CBS television station affiliate, Channel 5 WCSC in Charleston, South Carolina was looking for stories from viewers on their Brown Thursday shopping experiences, On their Facebook page they posted:

Some stores are already open for “Brown Thursday” deals. Are you out shopping, or standing in line for sales?

In the November 22, 2013 edition of USA Today, an article entitled, “The New Black Friday Is Brown Thursday” the new idiom was referred to thusly:

As most have probably heard, more retail outlets are diving into what they hope will be an even bigger money-making trend this year. Instead of opening their doors the Friday after Thanksgiving, they are trying to pull shoppers in even earlier, at 6 a.m. on the holiday. Another growing trend? Calling the holiday Brown Thursday. One comedian said that people who use that phrase should be choked on sight.

Even the Las Vegas Express edition of November 24, 2013 had this to say about the new idiom in an article entitled, “Thanksgiving Now Being Called Brown Thursday By The Media.”

First off, that just sounds disgusting. Who in their right mind will be going around saying “It’s Brown Thursday!”? It sounds like they are excited to go poop. But, the problem is how the media loves to try to make up buzz words to catch on.

But believe it or not, the earliest reference for Brown Thursday was found on Jezebal.com in a blog article written by Jenna Sauers on November 21, 2011  entitled, “Forget Black Friday, This Season It’s All About Brown Thursday” where she wrote:

Sears, which opened on Thanksgiving day in 2010, won’t do so again this year. (“There was a sentiment from customers to keep Thanksgiving as a holiday,” admitted a sheepish-sounding spokesperson.) But the overall trend is still for longer hours, hence why shopping on Thanksgiving, by the way, now has a name: Brown Thursday. 

It wasn’t just the fodder of blog, however.  It was also written about on the InStyle magazine website (a registered trademark of Time Inc.) in an article published on November 22, 2011 entitled, “Brown Thursday 2011: The New Black Friday?”

Just as retailers originally didn’t like the idiom Black Friday, consumers aren’t enamored with the idiom Brown Thursday.  Still the media seems to be pushing this idiom as the replacement name for American Thanksgiving, and so Idiomation pegs this unfortunate idiom to 2011.

Horse Collar Tackle

What would football or rugby be without perfect tackles, high tackles, diving tackles, grass cutter tackles, broken tackles, slam tackles, and wing tackles? But one tackle that’s been banned in the last ten years by the National Football League (NFL), the Canadian Football League (CFL) and the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) is the horse collar tackle.

So what exactly is a horse collar tackle? When the defender reaches a hand inside the ball carrier’s collar by their necks from behind and pulls the player down, that’s a horse collar tackle. The dangers associated with this kind of tackle are that it can cause severe injuries to the tackled player’s neck, broken legs and ankles, and tears to ligaments in the knees and ankles.

The rule instituted in 2005 that forbids the use of the horse collar tackle was euphemistically referred to as the “Roy Williams Rule” due in large part to the fact that the 2004 NFL season saw 6 major injuries thanks to horse collar tackles. Four of those six major injuries were a result of Roy Williams’ horse collar tackles. On May 23, 2005 and as reported in a number of newspapers including the May 25, 2005 edition of the Lewiston Tribune, owners of NFL teams voted 27 to 5 to ban the tackle. The 5 times that didn’t want it banned were the Dallas Cowboys (the team with Roy Williams), the Detroit Lions, the New England Patriots, the New Orleans Saints, and the San Francisco 49ers. In the Lewiston Tribune the Associated Press story entitled, “Owners Prohibit Horse Collar Tackle” the article stated in part:

The owners’ only definitive action was the 27-5 vote to ban the horse collar tackle, in which a defender grabs the back inside of an opponent’s shoulder pads and yanks the player down. Dallas safety Roy Williams does the tackle as well as anybody, but he seriously injured All-Pro received Terell Owens of Philadelphia with the maneuver last season.

On August 28, 2013 Jaimie Uribe of Fort Lauderdale, under the headline “Around The League” posted this to his Google Plus account:

Can’t hit high, cant hit low, cant hit from the blindside, cant hit with unnecessary force, cant grab from the horse collar, can’t grab from the facemask, cant hit with the arm, helmet, or shoulder, oh yeah, and can’t trip someone either as that is just too rough. Is the NFL one rule away from jumping the shark?

Now the game of football (more or less as we know it) in America has been around since 1889 and the rules have evolved ever since. In 1974, there were serious changes in the rules to add action, color and tempo to the games. Four years later, more rule changes were made, this time permitting a defender to maintain contact with a receiver within five yards of scrimmage. Restricted contact was allowed after that point.

But nowhere in all the research done was Idiomation able to identify when horse collar tackle was first used.  Idiomation’s best guess is that it was some time after 1978 and before 2000. If readers or visitors have additional links they can provide to help pin point the origin of the expression, please post them in the Comments section below.