I was reminded of today’s phrase by a recent “TV event,” here is the US. The event was the Happy Days 30th Reunion and the phrase is “jump the shark.”

I don’t think “Jump the Shark” will make it into any reference books, at least no serious ones. But I think it should because it describes a very real and increasingly common event. The term refers to the point in a TV series when it has peaked and the writers/producers cannot sustain the stories or plots that made the series a success. At this point they jump the shark. They become desperate to keep their audience. So desperate they do something stupid. Something designed to pander to the audience. These episodes are usually advertised with phrase like “Next week, on a very special…”

The term comes from theSeptember 13th, 1977 Happy Days episode when the the Fonze jumps a shark on water skies, thus marking the beginning of the end of the series.

I think notion of jumping the shark can apply to other entertainment media too- radio, movie series (James Bond), even podcasting.

To learn when your favorite show jumped the shark visit JumptheShark.com, they are the ones that coined the term. At the site you can also vote on when many TV shows of the past and present jumped the shark.

I was reminded of today’s word while listening to The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde. The word is philistine. I have always known I didn’t want to be called a philistine, I just wasn’t sure what it meant specifically.

Turns out a Philistine, with a capital P, is a native of Philistia, an ancient areas that is now known as the the south western part of Palestine or Canaan. The Philistines occupied the five cities of Gaza, "Ashkelon">Ashkelon, Ashdod, Ekron, and
Gath.

When philistine isn’t capitalized it is an noun- a low brow person uninterested in intellectual or artistic pursuits. A person who is uninformed or ignorant in a particular area of study. One dictionary included the connotation that a philistine is drawn to or motivated by material gain- selfish.

Interesting word today, parastatals. Even more interesting I found this word in a piece of spam I received at work. Of course the spam was from Nigeria. The spam was trying to get me to do business with them by bragging, “We do business with Mobil Nigeria and other parastatals.” I figured parastatals was a typo but they I decided to look it up. To my surprise it is both a noun and adjective. As an adjective it describes a business or organization that is owned or controlled by the state. As a noun it is the business or organization owned or controlled by the state.

I could only find this definition at dictionary.com so I must conclude it is a newer word. I also noticed my Google search produced a lot of links to African nation websites. I think parastatal must be a very regional word almost unique to African nations. I know most western nations don’t have nearly as many government administered organization and the emerging world but I have never heard of Amtrak, the BBC or Telmex referred to as a parastatal.

Here is the complete email:

Dear Scott,


We are a registered company in Nigeria and saw your advertorial in the November 2004 offshore magazine. We do business with Mobil Nigeria and other parastatals.


We’d like to know the modalities this resellers option of your product would like here in Nigeria.


What are your requirements.


Thank you and have a nice day.

 

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