The search engine that my laptop has as a default engine is very creative, as are probably most search engines in their efforts to woo and win users. The whole 'search-engine-concept' is fascinating because the company names have become, in some cases, verbs. The lines, "I Googled" and "Do you Yahoo?" are used interchangeably between verbs and proper nouns.
But....I did not sign on today to discuss the nouveau grammar that must be driving English majors nuts. What caught my eye and my attention, which then migrated to my imagination, was the always-inventive header that my search engine created. Today's graphic was an shout-out to Elzie Crisler Segar, aka E.C. Segar, the creator of the Popeye character.
Here is where you say, "Ooh, you are so showing your age!"
When I was a child, Popeye was a huge hit with children of many ages. The television cartoon was sure to be on in thousands of households as 'we' followed the adventures of Popeye, Olive Oyl and frynds. (Intentional 'friends' mispelling.) I cannot remember what, as a child, I would have found particularly fascinating or funny about the series. Most likely it would have been the exploding biceps after the ingestion of canned spinach, or the muscled and bulging forearm constantly sending villains into rocket-like trajectories. As an adult, the memory that remains indelibly imprinted in my mind is the 'voice' of both Popeye and Olive Oyl. I could hear those two 'voices' across a crowded room today and recognize them instantly. To be sure, Popeye's gravely voice would win no present-day Oscar and, heaven knows that the voice of Olive Oyl was akin to fingernails on the old chalkboard, but trademarks those voices were and still are.
The cartoon must have also improved and burnished the reputation of the canned spinach industry. For years - until my early twenties - I thought I hated any form of spinach because, when I was very young, my parents would feed me canned spinach (disgusting) and make me sit at the table until I had eaten every bit of it. I'm not certain when this parental practice of torture ended. Probably years before my recollection of my high school graduation dinner???????
Now, the cynic in me wonders how much the spinach industry paid the producer of "Popeye and Olive Oyl" to feature canned spinach as the energy booster. Of course, this is a far healthier energy boost than a beverage loaded with fifty-times the normal caffeine amount in regular soft drinks. The irony in all of my spinach-speak is that I grew to love a hot spinach salad with bacon and sliced, hard-boiled eggs and now I am too old to be allowed to eat it.
Where's the justice in that?
Ancora imparo
