Regularity
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On a flight from Australia to Scotland, Bob Ladd bought "a packet of very tasty dried strawberries, packed in Thailand for the airline market". He writes:
On the back of the packet we were informed of the benefits of the contents, which were:
– Contains high Vitamin C which acts as antioxidants.
– Contains dietary fibres which facilitate defecation.
He notes that the English is pretty good, compared to other examples of airline-trade packaging, if we ignore "the overenthusiastic application of the plural morpheme and the arguably missing commas before the relative clauses". And "facilitate defecation" is "appropriately formal".
But no food packet produced in an anglophone country would ever directly mention defecation by any name. I imagine what a native English copywriter would say about dietary fibre is that it "helps maintain regularity".
This seems right, though I don't know any way to do an internet search of text on food packaging. It's not one of the options at blekko, for example, although a search for "facilitate defecation" /food comes up empty, and the 16 reported web results for "facilitate defecation" are mostly in quasi-medical contexts (even the one about the "13 benefits of Drinking Coconut Water" is from a site giving "Natural Beauty and Health Tips"). Google and Bing searches for the same string produce a larger number of similar results.
Unfortunately, searches for "maintain regularity" turn up results that are less clinical but still mostly not food-oriented — though number 8 on the blekko list is a page from the U.S. Highbush Blueberry Council. I suspect that a snack food packaged in the U.S. for the airline trade would avoid the whole issue, under whatever name.
Erik Zyman Carrasco said,
January 3, 2011 @ 9:46 am
Heh, at first I definitely thought this post was going to be about regularity in linguistics (for instance, the past-tense form played as opposed to, say, went). Did you make the title potentially misinterpretable (especially in the context of a linguistics blog) on purpose, MYL?
[(myl) Who, me? I'm just channeling Bob Ladd. It's true that over the years I've written a bit about (quasi-)regularity, but no amount of dietary fiber will help you with that.]
Twitter Trackbacks for Language Log » Regularity [upenn.edu] on Topsy.com said,
January 3, 2011 @ 10:19 am
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Betty M said,
January 3, 2011 @ 10:44 am
The french are less coy and happy to advertise things promising better intestinal/digestive transit. In the UK things like Activia probiotic yoghurt etc tend to stick to phrases like "feeling sluggish" or at a push digestive discomfort.
Matthew Baerman said,
January 3, 2011 @ 10:52 am
For an unsystematic glimpse of the cultural relativism involved, compare the Dutch Yakult website (http://www.yakult.nl/), with darmen and stoelgang (guts and poop) prominently featured on the homepage, with the American one (http://www.yakultusa.com/), which never gets more explicit than 'digestive system'.
Robert Coren said,
January 3, 2011 @ 11:08 am
@Betty M: along the same lines, consider the signs in public places in the UK (this is a very old memory, so I don't know if such signs still exist) that read "Commit No Nuisance". I did not realize when I first saw such that it was the equivalent of the French "Défense d'uriner".
Alvin L said,
January 3, 2011 @ 11:12 am
I can't remember the text on the box of Twinings peppermint tea, but it was something to the effect of "aids digestion" — arguably the same process, mentioned in the coyest manner possible. (Though medically speaking, little digestion occurs in the colon, where fiber is said to help the most.)
Jonathan Lundell said,
January 3, 2011 @ 11:23 am
My first association of "facilitate defecation" is not "maintain regularity", but rather a degree of facilitation that one might wish to avoid on a long flight.
Barney said,
January 3, 2011 @ 12:38 pm
Not really a language related point, but while its true that Vitamin C is an antioxidant, I don't think its been established that extra antioxidants in the diet will do anything to help most people. But who'd let the facts get in the way of a good bit of marketing? ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antioxidant#Disease_prevention )
neff said,
January 3, 2011 @ 12:46 pm
I agree with your last sentence, Mark, and not just for the airline trade — I find many food products will emphasize on the packaging how much fiber they have, but without even a hint about why that might be desirable, leaving it up to the potential purchaser to mentally fill in the rest.
SlideSF said,
January 3, 2011 @ 1:15 pm
The branding and marketing arms of the food and personal hygiene industry in America have a horror of referring to any part of the digestive system from the "lower tract" and beyond. There is even a brand of commercial "bath tissue" out there named "Asure"; as if they want to assure you of its quality without in any way referring to what you are going to use it on.
Dan T. said,
January 3, 2011 @ 1:33 pm
In British public buildings, there are signs pointing to the "toilet", where Americans would use something more euphemistic like "restroom" or "lavatory" or just the man/woman icons.
language hat said,
January 3, 2011 @ 1:50 pm
In British public buildings, there are signs pointing to the "toilet", where Americans would use something more euphemistic like "restroom" or "lavatory"
Perhaps you're unaware that "toilet" is itself a euphemism, as are all such terms above the "shitter"/"shithouse" level.
boynamedsue said,
January 3, 2011 @ 2:25 pm
Though toilet was originally a euphemism, it's been stable for a long time, and was being discouraged as vulgarly "non-U" by that dreadful woman whose name I forget in the 1930's.
I think the Americans are the masters of piling euphemism upon euphemism, not only in shite-oil related terminology (my own dialect's term for the bog or jacksie), but in death related terminology.
A service? Really? Are you getting your car washed or summat?
Ellen K. said,
January 3, 2011 @ 2:34 pm
But "service" for a funeral is related to "church service", and sometimes even is a church service. Use of "service" for a funeral service isn't something particular to death related terminology.
richard howland-bolton said,
January 3, 2011 @ 3:03 pm
By far the loveliest term for the lav I've met is one I've only seen once (at Letchworth State Park, NY I think): 'comfort station'.
Biological details aside, comfort is definitely what it provided!
Andrew (not the same one) said,
January 3, 2011 @ 3:05 pm
I would have thought that 'lavatory' – though of course it was euphemistic in origin, since its root meaning is 'washroom' – is older than 'toilet', which is a more recent euphemism.
GeorgeW said,
January 3, 2011 @ 3:06 pm
Other animals die where people often 'pass away' or just 'pass' (At least in the American South). It seems that the closer the deceased is to the speaker or addressee, the less likely we will use the 'die' word.
I can recall many years ago when traveling to Europe, being a little surprised with the frankness of 'toilet.' It seemed much too directly related to fixture and suggestive of why one might being going there.
boynamedsue said,
January 3, 2011 @ 3:10 pm
But the word service has taken over (as far as I can see) to describe the act of burial and everything associated with it, obviously funeral is still understood, but it's not quite polite to ask "When's your mom's funeral?". Other American death euphemism's I've noticed are "casket" for "coffin" and "memorial" for "headstone", and the avoidance of "corpse" and "graveyard".
All of these terms were in use in 19th and early 20th century America, but have now bee replaced by less visceral terms.
Andrew (not the same one) said,
January 3, 2011 @ 3:14 pm
boynamedsue: I think you mean Nancy Mitford; but her article on the English aristocracy was published in the 1950's. And there 'lavatory' is the 'U' form, preferred to 'toilet'. (The article was picking up claims about language put forward by the linguist Alan Ross. In principle both Ross and Mitford were being purely descriptive, saying how upper-class people did in fact talk – and Mitford's article was not terribly pro-aristocracy when read as a whole – though her claims were widely taken in a prescriptive spirit.)
xyzzyva said,
January 3, 2011 @ 3:21 pm
I'm not sure what to make of the fact that the verb to shit may or may not be regular, and can vary in its irregularity: shitted, shit, or shat.
Ellen K. said,
January 3, 2011 @ 4:15 pm
Casket is a euphemism? I've never heard it in any other meaning. A synonym for coffin. If it once was a euphemism, it no longer is.
boynamedsue said,
January 3, 2011 @ 4:40 pm
In the UK, casket is a container for carrying something of value, usually jewellery. It seems to me that in the US the euphemism is used (like the funeral/service thing) when talking about specific deaths of familiar people rather than death in general.
So lady Di had a service, but you say a funeral while you were driving home. My Grandad had a casket, but Dracula sleeps in a coffin. You might be right in that casket is no longer a euphemism, and has therefore driven out the older meaning (like toilet has). But even so, with the extensive vocab list based on euphemism, to us, Americans talking abut death sound very prissy.
Andrew, thanks for the info, was Nancy Mitford the nazi one?
boynamedsue said,
January 3, 2011 @ 4:41 pm
sorry: "You SAW a funeral when you were driving home"
Andrew (not the same one) said,
January 3, 2011 @ 5:12 pm
boynamedsue: No, that was Unity. (And Diana, who maried Oswald Mosley, was a fascist.) Jessica was a communist. To the extent that Nancy had a political affiliation at all, it was Gaullist (she lived in France for many years).
On another issue, I get the feeling that the American sense of 'casket' is taking over here too – the older sense is preserved by the Casket Scene in Merchant of Venice, and the Casket Letters attributed to Mary Queen of Scots, but I don't know how many people would recognise those references nowadays.
Robert Coren said,
January 3, 2011 @ 5:34 pm
Further to euphemisms for excretoria, and the differences among cultures: I do remember seeing a sign in (I think) Munich in 1970 directing me (and anyone else who wanted it) to the "Pissort". (Ort is German for "place".)
Ellen K. said,
January 3, 2011 @ 6:12 pm
There seems to be variation as far as these words. Thinking of the funeral stuff, but true for all of them I imagine. Casket still retaining other meanings for some, but not for others. For me, casket is not a euphemism, but a classier word with the same meaning as coffin. And I would not use "service" for a funeral. It's a funeral, or a funeral service. Even when talking about Grandma, Dad, etc. Nor would I use "Memorial" for a headstone. I don't think think I'd even understand that one.
And I don't think avoidance of the word "graveyard" relates to euphemism. Cemetery is not a euphemism, and never has been, at least in English.
SlideSF said,
January 3, 2011 @ 7:20 pm
Every day near my house I pass a sign that says "Please do not let your dog use the restroom in our flower garden". But there's no "restroom" there!
Adrian Bailey (UK) said,
January 3, 2011 @ 7:33 pm
@SlideSF
Um, it's an idiom used as metaphor.
As for the words "restroom/bathroom" themselves, I hope they don't become commonly used in the UK in this context. "Toilet" is quite euphemistic enough. And when I die I don't want anyone to say that I've "passed". Passing is what I did to my exams in 1982.
SlideSF said,
January 3, 2011 @ 8:34 pm
Yes, I know what it is. It's just absurd to talk about a dog "using the restroom". And when people die, there is a certain buildup of gasses due to decomposition. So yes, they do "pass".
David Green said,
January 3, 2011 @ 9:22 pm
For "casket" in its original sense, see the Merchant of Venice.
And I remember "Pissort" from Germany in the 1950s. Don't know whether it's still current.
Garrett Wollman said,
January 3, 2011 @ 10:55 pm
To get out of the euphemism thread for a moment… You would not see "facilitates defecation" on a U.S. package in part because "facilitates defecation" is (colorably) a "health claim" and thus subject to FDA regulation. "Helps restore natural colon function", on the other hand, is not a "health claim" and therefore unregulated. (You could say that about a glass of water, and doubtless some of the products that make such a claim are less effective even than that, but since such claims are vacuously true of almost any food, the FDA doesn't regulate them. Cosmetic claims likewise, which is why a certain saturation-advertised cosmetic cream claims to "make fine lines disappear FROM VIEW" — cosmetic claim — rather than claiming to make them actually disappear, a health claim.)
Disclaimer: IANAL,TINLA.
boynamedsue said,
January 4, 2011 @ 12:44 am
Ellen, re coffin/casket.
Isn't "a classier word for the same thing" which originally had a different meaning (and still does in UK English) more or less the definition of a euphemism?
SlideSF said,
January 4, 2011 @ 1:06 am
Calling your dinner a "repast" or a vulgar show "risque" might be classy, but they are not euphemisms. Calling a penis a "pee-pee" is a euphemism, but it's not classy.
Jason Eisner said,
January 4, 2011 @ 1:14 am
Host: Welcome! You've had a long walk — would you like to go wash up?
Guest: No, that's all right — I washed up in the bushes on the way here.
I used to tell this joke with the even prissier euphemism "Would you like to wash your hands?" But "I washed my hands in the bushes" often got the reaction "Yuck!"
Other versions: "I already used the restroom behind a tree," "I powdered my nose in the ditch," etc.
Excuse me, I've got to go use the euphemism now …
baylink said,
January 4, 2011 @ 1:27 am
It all sounds like shit my dad said, to me.
baylink said,
January 4, 2011 @ 1:27 am
Before he, y'know, passed.
John Walden said,
January 4, 2011 @ 4:25 am
A long time ago I was told that a US version of the Bible had "Saul went into the cave to use the bathroom" but I can't find it in these Google days. What I did find out in my brief foray is that the Hebrew was a euphemism that was directly translated into the KJ version: "to cover his feet". So we do find many 'carefully' worded explanations such as:
"There was a cave, and Saul went in to relieve himself
(1 Samuel 24:3), literally, . to cover his feet. The last clause here should be understood in the same sense as Judg. 3:24. The expression is a euphemism for using the bathroom, or going to a restroom"
Euphemism piled on euphemism.
Peter G. Howland said,
January 4, 2011 @ 5:15 am
Even after seeing the TV commercials by the folks over at the Charmin toilet paper place for years, I still get a chuckle out of their euphemistically based product campaign that lets them get away with a "take" on the old rhetorical saw: "Does a bear shit in the woods?".
(BTW Jason Eisner just stole my freshly plagiarized closing line, dammit!)
Marion Crane said,
January 4, 2011 @ 5:58 am
@ Matthew Baerman: to be fair, 'darmen' is more accurately 'intestines' and only in a more colloquial translation 'guts'; and 'stoelgang' is 'bowel movement'. They are perfectly polite words. To get 'poop', it would have to have said 'poep'.
But on the whole, I suspect the Dutch are less prone to euphemisms when it comes to bowel movements and assorted bodily functions.
GeorgeW said,
January 4, 2011 @ 6:31 am
@John Walton: Interesting.
The current KJV translates the passage literally, "to cover his feet." The RSV is a little more explicit, "to relieve himself."
I think it is appropriate to translate the passage euphemistically to better express the writers style (although 'bathroom" may be a little too cute).
John F said,
January 4, 2011 @ 6:49 am
Quite often you probably would want to actually wash your hands before eating. But most people I know likely wouldn't use that particular euphemism so I wonder what reaction Jason Eisner would get if he asked the host if he could use the kitchen sink. I also wonder if that's why the man who used to spread cow slurry for my dad used to decline to wash his hands before eating. Maybe he just didn't need to go. He's also still alive and approaching his 80s.
http://www.sinfest.net/archive_page.php?comicID=3511
Faldone said,
January 4, 2011 @ 7:05 am
For a euphemism "cover his feet" sounds a little, umm, dysphemistic.
AlexB said,
January 4, 2011 @ 7:46 am
And what do they make of 1 Samuel 25:34 "there had not been left unto Nabal by the morning light any that pisseth against the wall"
Nicholas Waller said,
January 4, 2011 @ 7:56 am
@ Jason Eisner – I first heard that washing-hands joke in former Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band member Viv Stanshall's comedy spoken-word (and later movie) work Sir Henry at Rawlinson End, in a bit of dialogue between Florrie Rawlinson, the Lady of the House, and Old Scrotum, the Wrinkled Retainer.
SCROTUM: Mornin', Ma'am. I filled in the grave nice.
FLORRIE : Perhaps you'd care to wash your hands.
SCROTUM : Aarr, no thank 'ee, ma'am. I already did that up against a Tree afore I come in ‘ere.
As for the avoidance of Death in certain countries, my favourite film is Powell & Pressburger's A Matter Of Life And Death, a title which describes the story well enough, renamed Stairway To Heaven for the US market. Acc to Wikipedia, "The distributor believed that American audiences wouldn't want to see a film with the word "Death" in the title, especially just after World War II. When Powell pointed out that the 1934 film Death Takes a Holiday was released without any problems, he was told that the title was acceptable because death was holidaying."
P&P had previous form – their mid-war The Life And Death Of Colonel Blimp was known as The Adventures of Colonel Blimp or simply Colonel Blimp in the US.
GeorgeW said,
January 4, 2011 @ 9:35 am
In war, we speak euphemistically about 'collateral damage' and 'friendly fire.'
Nan said,
January 4, 2011 @ 11:18 am
Ellen, cemetery is a euphemism. It came into usage, particularly in America, with the rural cemetery movement in the 19th century and a transition from graveyards (grim places where the dead rotted) to marketing "cemeteries" where loved ones slept while awaiting the resurrection.
Olga said,
January 4, 2011 @ 4:42 pm
Pissort in German seems to have fallen out of use, sadly. The most neutral term in my dialect is Klo, which is an abbreviation of Klosett, cognate to closet, I'd guess. It's used with the preposition auf 'on' (as in ich geh auf's Klo 'i go to the bathroom' / ich bin auf dem klo 'i am using the bathroom'), which is a bit suggestive. (My great-aunt uses the preposition an 'at', but knowing her, this is probably not motivated by modesty, but maybe regional.)
Some people find Klo incredibly vulgar, though.
Xmun said,
January 4, 2011 @ 5:07 pm
@Faldone: For a euphemism "cover his feet" sounds a little, umm, dysphemistic.
Sir John Harington used this expression in his interesting work A New Discourse of A Stale Subject, Called the Metamorphosis of Ajax, and explained it in a manuscript annotation in one presentation copy: 'because the Jews ware short garments that covered not ye feet but when they stooped.' (Cited from p. 88 of Elizabeth Story Donno's edition.) The short garments were skirts rather like kilts.
Lane Greene said,
January 4, 2011 @ 5:23 pm
My instinct, like a few others', is that "improves digestion" is the preferred US English euphemism. And indeed the Activia page uses "digestion" freely for you-know-what:
http://www.activia.us.com/DigestiveHealth/about-digestive-health.aspx
"Slow intestinal transit" is worked in a few times in case anyone is confused about which stage of "digestion" is intended.
Diane said,
January 4, 2011 @ 5:24 pm
@boynamedsue
"Isn't a 'classier word for the same thing'…more or less the definition of a euphemism?
Er, no. It's the definition of a synonym. To me, a euphemism is a word or phrase used when you want to obscure what you are truly talking about. A less-vulgar word for the same thing is not necessarily a euphemism. For example, "he went to the bathroom" is a euphemism for "he took a shit" but "he defecated" or "he went poo-poo" are not euphemisms because they do not suggest anything other than what happened.
For me, and apparently, Ellen, casket is a synonym for coffin, and cemetery for graveyard. They are not euphemisms, because they are in no way obscuring the true meaning.
John Cowan said,
January 4, 2011 @ 6:10 pm
Robert Coren: Making noises or stinks are also common-law nuisances. The definition is very general: "an act not warranted by law, or an omission to discharge a legal duty, which act or omission obstructs or causes inconvenience or damage to the public in the exercise of rights common to all His Majesty's subjects".
When my plumber says lavatory, he means my bathroom sink, and etymologically he is right: < Latin lavare 'wash'.
Xyzzyva: Historically the verb was shite, with past tense shote and past participle shitten. The use of shit in the present tense and sometimes the past is probably influenced by the noun shit: the first quotation of that form is Robert Burns 1787. Print quotations grow scarce after that, but shat, shit, and shitted are all in use today. It's not something that authors of usage books and style guides usually pronounce on.
I once told a Scottish friend of mine that you don't really understand American English until you know what "Johnny went to the bathroom in his pants" means. He replied that he had to think about it for about ten minutes before realizing that it meant that Johnny had done the lavy in his breeks. I replied that it also implied that Johnny was a wee fella rather than merely pissed.
Ellen K. said,
January 4, 2011 @ 6:20 pm
Nan, I still don't understand how a word (cemetery) that has only ever had one single meaning in English can be a euphemism for that one and only thing that it refers to.
Ellen K. said,
January 4, 2011 @ 6:27 pm
@boynamedsue: Just because something originally had another meaning does not make it a euphemism for current speakers ignorant of the original meaning. Etymology is not destiny.
Stan said,
January 5, 2011 @ 6:50 am
"Ease your passage" would be nicely ambiguous for food on a flight, "…motions" rather less so.
J.H. said,
January 5, 2011 @ 7:56 am
Funny that I should be reading this now, because I'm drinking oat milk from a container that says it "[accelerates] wriggling of intestines for defecating smoothly".
Photo (with some other interesting benefits listed) here.
Stan said,
January 5, 2011 @ 8:12 am
J.H.: "To supply nutrition for salary men"? Intriguing.
Ken Brown said,
January 5, 2011 @ 11:25 am
Marion Crane said: " to be fair, 'darmen' is more accurately 'intestines' and only in a more colloquial translation 'guts'"
There is a very serious scientific clinical journal called "Gut", subtitled: "An international journal of gastroenterology and heptology" For some reason I like that title. According to the BMJ website at http://gut.bmj.com/ "Subscribers to Gut also receive Frontline Gastroenterology" which encourages all sorts of strange thoughts.
John Cowan said: "I once told a Scottish friend of mine that you don't really understand American English until you know what "Johnny went to the bathroom in his pants" means. He replied that he had to think about it for about ten minutes before realizing that it meant that Johnny had done the lavy in his breeks. I replied that it also implied that Johnny was a wee fella rather than merely pissed."
The image in my head was a man getting up in the middle of the night to go to the toilet who put on his trousers in case he met someone else on the way. Or maybe because the house was cold. So I imagined a man in his own home, because in a hotel or someone else's house you would put your trousers on anyway, but who maybe had guests sleeping in another room. And then I read the second line. Strange people, Americans :-)
Gabriel said,
January 5, 2011 @ 1:07 pm
Casket and coffin are not synonyms: a casket is a rectangular prism, like the jewelry box, while a coffin has an elongated hexagon shape, broadest at the shoulders and tapering towards the head and feet. A coffin weighs less than a casket of equal length and maximum width, since it carves out less volume and uses less material.
Dan T. said,
January 5, 2011 @ 2:10 pm
I recall from dictionary descriptions of Proto-Indo-European roots that the ancestral word to "shit" is actually derived from a word meaning "separate", as in separating one's excrement from oneself. So it seems to have originated as a euphemistic expression, possibly replacing some earlier unknown word that became considered too vulgar. There may not be any word for excrement or the places and fixtures involved in its disposal that didn't start out as some sort of euphemism.
GeorgeW said,
January 5, 2011 @ 2:30 pm
@Dan T: Your memory is good. According to "The American Heritage Dictionary of Indo-European Roots," 'shit' is derived from PIE skei- with the general meaning of cut or split. It shares it origin with words like science, nice, prescient, schism, etc.
GeorgeW said,
January 5, 2011 @ 2:37 pm
Although not a clear distinction, I think I (ancient, Southern AmE) would use 'casket' to refer to the box in which the deceased is placed and 'coffin' once it is filled with the body.
I would never use either for any other type of box or container.
Examples:
1. She selected a casket to bury her mother in.
2. Her mother lies in her coffin at the cemetery.
Ellen K. said,
January 5, 2011 @ 2:47 pm
Google image searches for casket and coffin fit (mostly) with the shape distinction Gabriel mentions.
April K said,
January 5, 2011 @ 4:56 pm
Regarding casket/coffin, I think I used them more or less interchangably for most of my life, until I became aquainted with medieval cookery. In that context a coffin is a pastry shell filled with meats, spices and vegetables. They're delicious, like meat pies for groups.
I'm also surprised no one has yet mentioned my favority euphemism for the room where shit happens – water closet. I succeeds at being specific while avoiding the whole issue of what actually happens there. I have even seen it used to refer to an outhouse which cannot be expected to feature any water (running or otherwise).
Terry Collmann said,
January 5, 2011 @ 8:03 pm
Ken Brown: although I know what "pants" means in AmE, as a BrE speaker the first image brought up by "in his pants" still involves underwear rather than trousers. Similarly "vest" ≠ "waistcoat".
zafrom said,
January 7, 2011 @ 7:21 am
@richard howland-bolton (January 3, 2011 @ 3:03 pm):
Re "comfort station": In the 1933 movie "Footlight Parade", the song "Honeymoon Hotel", various of the hotel staff sing about their (daily) duties. Sam McDaniel sings, "I's the captain of the comfort station, at the Honeymoon Hotel" (I's = I is). And 1932's "The Music Box" has "daily duties", for those who don't want to avoid the whole issue.
baylink said,
January 7, 2011 @ 8:44 am
And let us not even mention "fanny".
Nor the Wayside Chapel joke.
Nicholas Waller said,
January 7, 2011 @ 7:01 pm
Cricketers store and transport their bats and pads and other playing paraphernalia in coffins – Standard or Wheelie Coffins in this case.
Keith said,
January 17, 2011 @ 12:04 pm
I welcome anything that improves the regularity of airline services.
On the subject of the word "coffin", French has a word "couffin" that means a kind of lightweight portable bed for a baby ("carry-cot" or "Moses basket" might be the English equivalents).
But French also has a word spelled "coffin" (though I think this may be pronounced the same way as "couffin" in the South West); it is a waterproof receptacle for a reaper's whetstone, used to touch up his scythe blade while out in the fields. The simplest are made of a cow's horn or are carved in a piece of wood, though examples of industrially produced coffins of metal or plastic exist.
http://museeagricole.botans.free.fr/automne2000/Coffins.jpg
K.