The Besnard Lakes is an entertaining pop group out of Montreal, but it's tough not to misread the band's name as the Barenaked Ladies, the pop group out of Toronto. A few people have remarked on the similarity. On Jan. 17, "Emma" posted a comment at aquariumdrunkard.com: "Before listening to the song, I thought it read 'Barenaked ladies.' Needless to say, confusion ensued."
Beyond the identical initial letters, the name Besnard Lakes is close to being an anagram of Barenaked Ladies. All the letters in the first fit into the second, with the exception of a stray "s." (Even that "s" can be argued away. When the Besnard Lakes started off in Saskatchewan, their name was the singular Besnard Lake, after the body of water in northern Saskatchewan.) Barenaked Ladies has four letters left over after those in Besnard Lakes are subtracted: "i," "d," "e" and "a."
Now, those five letters might suggest the bands don't share "ideas." But they might also be recombined into "sadie," which, made plural, produces the Sadies - another Toronto band. It was around the time that I started dredging the names of other recording artists from Besnard Lakes - Keane, Seal, Slade, Drake - that I enrolled in Anagrammers Anonymous to shake the habit.
Fulsome forewards
Old bugbears continue to lumber out of hibernation.
A newspaper article about Nicholas Chartier, producer of The Hurt Locker, said he was barred from attending the Oscars "for having flaunted the rules by sending out bulk e-mails soliciting last-minute votes." I assume the Academy barred him for flouting the rules rather than for sending people the rules in gigantic letters with blinking arrows pointed at them.
An article about Up in the Air read: "Job termination is never easy. But in Jason Reitman's Oscar-nominated film, George Clooney makes it look like a slick transaction, a problem that can be solved with a couple of witty lines and a fullsome termination package." The misspelling of "fulsome" is obvious, but the word itself invites problems.
When the adjective began life in English in 1250, it meant abundant, but that sense was supplanted by cloying (1410), offensive (1507), inducing nausea (1601), overfed (1642) and, the meaning that stuck from 1663, offensively or insincerely overdone, as in flattery or affection. The word is frequently used these days to mean abundant, returning to its original meaning, or effusive. Did the writer of the article mean that the termination package was rich or, since the sentence was dismissive, that the package was insincere and offensive?
In another article, a judge said a suspect had taken advantage "of an elderly man who leant him his life's savings." In these lean economic times, perhaps the elderly man was imposing a lien. There was no word on whether the dealings took place during Lent.
Ivan Bateman noticed a hiccup in this excerpt from a book review: "An early warning that this is not going to be a warts-and-all account comes in the effusive forward by [two of the book's subjects]" If the subjects were hockey players, they might be forwards, but even they would write a foreword. Top marks, though, for using "effusive" rather than "fulsome."
Dorothy Carr offers a candidate for the WonderTypo awards: an article that talked about "addiction, subtraction and multiplication." If numbers are addictive, do they lead to numbness?
Recombinant CBC
CBC Radio sought entries a while ago for a competition called Canada Writes, one section of which involved movie pitches. I belatedly propose one pitch, solely for the title. The movie would be 90 minutes long, divided into three parts. Each part would remake an episode of a popular situation comedy, with different actors in the roles. For instance, Two and a Half Men would be reshot with Matthew Broderick in Jon Cryer's role, Greg Kinnear in Charlie Sheen's role and Meryl Streep as the mother. The title of the movie? Sitcombo.