nomenclatura, part two
One of our regular clients is a monster pharmaceutical company, ubiquitous on this side of London, as their buildings dominate the A4 on the way out to the airport. For some reason we always seem to do conferences and team building sessions for the sports and leisure drinks division, and every year they produce a series of great ideas, new products and marketing challenges. Last year it was sweet stale water (with a sports cap), this year we were privileged to sample the new drink aimed at the lunchbox and impulse buy sector (I wish I was making this up).For as long as I can remember, their tooth-rottingly sweet blackcurrant syrup drink has been around, I can even remember drinking it myself as a sprog (I know that it is decribed as 'toothkind', but that simply means that it is full of aspartame and other artificial sweeteners instead of sucrose, and does nothing to educate the palate away from our national obsession with sugar). Now there may be a blueberry version, code named 'blubena'. Now, although the blueberry is a native american plant with a long and honourable history of cultivation, and I have consumed them with pleasure as a part of a fruit salad or an american type muffin, I am not entirely certain what they are supposed to taste of, all I can recall is a sort of general, slightly tart, fruitiness. I don't think they are meant to taste like boiled up jelly sweets of the type most commonly found in motorway service stations, this may well appeal to the untrained palate of the three to six year-old, but amongst us supposed grown-ups the response was a unanimous revulsion. I suspect that this innovation will never make it to market.
The conference delegates were provided with entertainment last night, of an improving kind. A Mr Panto (and I didn't make that up either), provided them with a murder mystery which unfolded and was solved during the course of their mexican buffet meal. I won't bore you with the details, beyond saying that it was coarse and corny, and pushed all the right buttons, as various executives were willingly set up and embarrassed in front of their colleagues. What seriously impressed me was that said Mr Panto had memorised the names of most of the delegates, considering a) that the seating was informal, and b) that there were 240 of them this was quite a feat. I won't reveal how much he charges for this entertainment, beyond stating that it is a great deal. As a team bonding exercise? probably better than paint-balling and much less messy.
Todays' words from the techy lexicon are rhyming slang;
You will often hear delegates or audience referred to as 'billies', this term is produced from Billy Bunters:Punters.
Similarly the term 'woollies' comes from Woolly Jumpers:Humpers, (humpers are the labourers of the tradeshow and conference industry, they are hired to transport large and heavy objects and materials into venues, and then take them out again afterwards, they are very commonly antipodean or south african, and mostly rugby players).
Finally, and with apologies to any american readers, 'septic' which comes from Septic Tank:Yank, I'm not sure why, most probably because it sounds good and indulges the british toilet humour obsession.
More gems from the techy dictionary as and when I come across them.
posted by Lampy @ 9/21/2005 02:11:00 pm
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