Have you ever noticed this happening? You learn a new word or hear an unusual name or learn some bit of history. And suddenly that word or topic is all over the place. It's in the newspaper, it's mentioned at a staff meeting, it's in a 20-year-old episode of Law and Order. Could it be that you haven't been listening all these years?
This sort of thing has a name. It's called "Baader-Meinhof phenomenon." It's also called "frequency illusion" or "recency illusion." The inclusion of "illusion" indicates that what you believe is merely your imagination.
In reality, you're not hearing that word or item more. You're just picking up on it now. One article said your brain knows you've learned something recently, and "your brain is simply reinforcing some newly acquired information." You're not consciously doing this. It just happens.
I so wanted the illusion to not be an illusion. I wanted to believe that that particular word was simply trending, in the same way that people trend on Twitter.
I can remember visiting Norfolk, Va., my former home, about a year ago. I got together with newspaper friends, and naturally, we talked about all things news. My friend Bill had just learned the word "chyron." The chyron is that string of words at the bottom of the screen during a newscast. At times, it gives you bonus information on a different story, but sometimes it's about the story on the main screen. Sometimes the words are stationary, and sometimes they stream along the screen. (Among my favorite chyrons: "Man in boxers leads police on brief chase" and "Man killed to death.")
So after that gathering, I heard "chyron" used over and over and over. Alas, it wasn't showing up any more often than before. My brain was just alerting me to it.
The phenomenon doesn't get its name from any word expert or language scholar. Strangely, it's named after a West German terrorist group that sought to start a revolution in the 1970s and '80s. A random person decided the phenomenon should be so dubbed after reading about the Baader-Meinhof Gang twice in a short time period.
Unfortunately, the phenomenon can be dangerous for mentally ill people. People with schizophrenia or paranoia might believe they're seeing something again and again, and that could cause them anxiety.
COLOR ME ...
I haven't heard this not terribly colorful phrase in a while. You'd start a phrase "color me" when what you meant was "consider me to be ..."
It started in the 1960s. It might have come from a coloring book for kids that encouraged use of colors to signify certain things. There was a hit song. But here's how it's used as recently as 2017 to 2019 in articles in The Washington Post:
Color me skeptical
Color me deeply skeptical
Color me successful
Color me an outlier
Color me gobsmacked (from genius writer Gene Weingarten)
Color me naïve
Color me unimpressed
Have you heard anyone use this phrase lately?
WHAT ARE ORGANIC FOODS?
OK, I know it sometimes seems like it, but "organic" doesn't simply mean expensive.
The dictionary meaning of organic is, simply, something from a living organism. But its meaning has greatly expanded. It's a specific way of growing fruits and vegetables with no fertilizer or other chemicals. Guidelines also, thankfully, prohibit sewage sludge. For those raising chickens and cows and beef cattle, it means avoiding antibiotics and growth hormones.
The USDA's National Organic Program is in charge of certifying whether an item can legally use the "organic" label. Please see this highly bureaucratic explanation of acceptable and unacceptable substances for organic products. It sounds strangely like a line out of Catch-22:
"In general, synthetic substances are prohibited for crop and livestock production unless specifically allowed and non-synthetic substances are allowed for crop and livestock production unless specifically prohibited."
Isn't that so clear?
Don't fall for believing something labeled "natural" is the same as "organic." Growers of natural foods can use all the fertilizer, hormones and sludge they want. So, before you buy an item labeled "natural," be sure to read the ingredients.
HECK
I think it's sweet that we have words in the language to replace our cruder words. "Heck" is simply a euphemism for (forgive me) "hell." Naturally, "euphemism" comes from the Greek word for "sounding good."
I can attest to the fact that my mother never once in her life said "hell." But she did say "heck."
Also, the word "darn," when one isn't talking about sewing or mending, is a euphemism for "damn." I think, in this case, my mother used "durn."
Please send me your favorite euphemisms (within reason).
NO BRAINER
Oh, the horror. This week I heard a TV commercial that started, "Want to brain better?"
The word for your brain is a noun. One cannot brain. No one in history has ever "brained." To brain is not a verb. Color me irritated.
Sources include How Stuff Works, Healthline, American Heritage Dictionary, The Washington Post, Phrase Finder, USDA, Nature's Pavilion, infuriating TV ad. Reach Bernadette at
Style on 03/30/2020