A BIG NAME IN CONCRETE
it's hard.
This evening I spent a few minutes mesmerized by an
Extreme
Engineering documentary on Discovery
HD Theater that chronicled the construction of the world's largest residential
building, rising Titanic-like into the skies over Sweden.
(We pause here to note that, just as most men will suffer absolutely any programming, no matter how awful, if it presents them a chance to see a beautiful naked woman, I will watch just about any programming, no matter how stultifying, if it presents me a chance to see a beautiful high definition image. Give me pixels over nipples on-screen any day.)
It was an amazing feat of engineering -- never mind the 500-foot-high crane work; just seating the 5,000-pound stair-sections created life-and-death scenarios for the workers -- but what I, avowed linguist and scatologist, found most fascinating was the name of the equipment that produced and distributed the concrete throughout the site:
The Putzmeister.
In the spirit of the documentary, which repeated the name over and over and over again, often enough that I started to laugh myself silly, let's repeat that:
The Putzmeister.
It sounds like a bad high school nickname. Or some stupid pledge-night fraternity prank. Or maybe an old Saturday Night Live skit. In any case, I was convinced, the more I saw and heard the name, that it was one of those great, notorious bits of lost-in-translation, like the Japanese software company that licensed Woody Woodpecker for an early browser application but couldn't reasonably translate their slogan ("I'm Woody, the Internet Pecker!") into English. It had to be some Swedish or Danish or German company that was big in Europe but utterly unheard of on these shores.
Turns out I was wrong.
The company -- Putzmeister-AG, "a pioneer for concrete pumps, mortar machines and high-density solid pumps" -- is, in fact, based in Germany. But it (and its unfortunate name) extend to many shores and languages, including our own. They have, in fact, a North American headquarters in Wisconsin. Where, I'm guessing, people are too busy making brats or drinking beer or wearing cheese on their heads to laugh at, or perhaps even to notice, the name.
But I suppose that, on a night like this, when a guy who spells his name FAVRE but pronounces it FARVE is starting his 200th consecutive NFL game on the not-quite-frozen tundra of Lambeau Field in that same, strange little state -- which was officially named by the U.S. Congress, standardizing a French corruption of a Native-American word the meaning of which is still disputed -- any Wisconsonian name, however unintentionally funny, however possibly unfortunate, sounds just fine.
(We pause here to note that, just as most men will suffer absolutely any programming, no matter how awful, if it presents them a chance to see a beautiful naked woman, I will watch just about any programming, no matter how stultifying, if it presents me a chance to see a beautiful high definition image. Give me pixels over nipples on-screen any day.)
It was an amazing feat of engineering -- never mind the 500-foot-high crane work; just seating the 5,000-pound stair-sections created life-and-death scenarios for the workers -- but what I, avowed linguist and scatologist, found most fascinating was the name of the equipment that produced and distributed the concrete throughout the site:
The Putzmeister.
In the spirit of the documentary, which repeated the name over and over and over again, often enough that I started to laugh myself silly, let's repeat that:
The Putzmeister.
It sounds like a bad high school nickname. Or some stupid pledge-night fraternity prank. Or maybe an old Saturday Night Live skit. In any case, I was convinced, the more I saw and heard the name, that it was one of those great, notorious bits of lost-in-translation, like the Japanese software company that licensed Woody Woodpecker for an early browser application but couldn't reasonably translate their slogan ("I'm Woody, the Internet Pecker!") into English. It had to be some Swedish or Danish or German company that was big in Europe but utterly unheard of on these shores.
Turns out I was wrong.
The company -- Putzmeister-AG, "a pioneer for concrete pumps, mortar machines and high-density solid pumps" -- is, in fact, based in Germany. But it (and its unfortunate name) extend to many shores and languages, including our own. They have, in fact, a North American headquarters in Wisconsin. Where, I'm guessing, people are too busy making brats or drinking beer or wearing cheese on their heads to laugh at, or perhaps even to notice, the name.
But I suppose that, on a night like this, when a guy who spells his name FAVRE but pronounces it FARVE is starting his 200th consecutive NFL game on the not-quite-frozen tundra of Lambeau Field in that same, strange little state -- which was officially named by the U.S. Congress, standardizing a French corruption of a Native-American word the meaning of which is still disputed -- any Wisconsonian name, however unintentionally funny, however possibly unfortunate, sounds just fine.
Posted: Mon - November 29, 2004 at 11:06 PM
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Published On: Jan 16, 2009 04:49 PM
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Published On: Jan 16, 2009 04:49 PM