Wanna do Lunch?

One of the recurring themes of this blog relates to ongoing changes in the English language. Words change in meaning over time.

I have noticed that folks who work in stores (grocery, shoe, whatever) refer to their meal-break as "lunch," regardless of the time of day. So a cashier at a supermarket would say, at 2:00AM, "I'm going to take my lunch in a half hour."

Will lunch cease to mean the midday meal? Stay tuned for the next 50 or so years and we will see.

Are you Grotesque?

Well, if you are a an unusual carved creature stuck on the side of a building, it depends on whether you spit.

The word "Gargoyle" shares a root with the word "Gargle"; they come from "gargouille", an old French word for "Throat". A gargoyle is a waterspout.

Similar statuary that do not spew water are simply Grotesques.

A House of a Different Color?

I live in a Victorian house built in 1900. There are several dozen essentially identical houses in my neighborhood. Call it early urban sprawl, back when the Castro was the suburbs.

So question - why do all the houses have garages? Cars didn't become common until years later. The first Model T rolled off the assembly lines in 1908. San Francisco already had an extensive mass transit network by the turn of the century.

I can't imagine that they were intended as urban "barns" for horses. So what's the deal?

Class Action Settlements, Last in a Series

Another notorious case involved claims that accused AT&T and Lucent of cheating customers by not informing them they were leasing old telephones. Consumers’ bills didn’t clearly explain that they were being charged for leasing a phone that they may have thrown away years ago. Some individuals unknowingly spent more than $1,300 leasing a phone that could be replaced new for $10.

The case was settled in 2002 for $350 million, of which $300 was to go to the plaintiffs, and $50 million in the form of prepaid phone cards to be donated to charities. The lawyers received $84.5 million in fees and expenses. About 92,000 class members ultimately collected a total of only $8.4 million. The rest of the settlement money was returned to AT&T and Lucent.

For the AT&T, Lucent case class counsel’s compensation was presented as being $84.5M as compared with $350M for plaintiffs (or 15%), when the actual result was $84.5M compared to $8.4M, a the ratio of more than 10 to 1 (or 1000%.)!

Class Action Settlements, First in a Series

One of the most notorious class action settlements in history was the Bank of Boston in which the settlement provided that class members (many of whom had no actual knowledge of the suit) would receive credits of up to $8.76 to their bank accounts – while the accounts were debited up to $90 to pay their attorney’s fee.

Sobering Math

World War II lasted, for the US, 1347 days. As of today, Sept 18, 2005, the war in Iraq has lasted 905 days. Just 442 more days to go.