The current issue of "Brill's Content", Fall 2001, which is also the last issue , contains an article about the "dot com bust" and the responsibity the media must take for hyperventilating metaphorically about the "New Economy" and "the Goldrush" in cyperspace. The writer describes the "dot com era" as a "blovian vision". Bet you never heard of the word "blovian"! Bet you think it means "inflated" or "overblown" (just like I did). You won't find "blovian" in an ordinary dictionary, but its use in describing the "dot com era" is very apt. Can anyone guess what it means?
You won't find "blovian" in an ordinary dictionary, but its use in describing the "dot com era" is very apt.
Don't you think it is a bit early to write off the dot.com era in this way? I'll agree that the verbiage engendered by its promoters reached a high figure on the Beaufort scale, and current events have shown that it was, at that time, worthy of little more than a zephyr. However, the dot.com era is still with us, and shows no sign of going away. It seems probable that the wind will rise again, and, one might say, that the period of blovianism will "blow over"!
However, the dot.com era is still with us, and shows no sign of going away. It seems probable that the wind will rise again, and, one might say, that the period of blovianism will "blow over"!
Agree with you, Rhubarb, that if "blovian" had anything to do with "blowing", it would "blow over". The author has come up with a description which is far less intuitive and far more clever than that. I think you will enjoy the wit if not the wisdom. P.S. Can we agree that the "dot com era" is more "air" than "era" ... ubiquitous, invisible, protean, oft-times tempestuous, infrequently gentle and never still. And, yes, "blovian" too, in the same sense that all life forms are "blovian" (except those which are extinct).
here is the complete* list of google-hits: Blovian brericauda (scientific name of the short-tailed shrew) Blovian Rainbow (some sort of chile pepper) Blovian Blue and Golds (macaws) Francine Blovian (gossip columnist! :)
bloviate means to talk long and windily about something, with an undercurrent meaning of doing so without having the slightest idea of what one is talking about. I suspect blovian is a backformation and refers to the fact that the dot com vision was based on a lot of hot air and little if any substance.
Aktshully, the dot-com era isn't over. There's been a major shakeout, sure, and the returns probably weren't as dramatic as predicted, but the dot-coms - the serious ones - are still out there and doing very, very nicely, thank you.
I always thought blovian meant talking at length without saying anything of substance. I saw it used to describe MPs' speeches and rather liked it for that reason, plus the fact that it runs trippingly off the tongue. I therefore await my imminent correction with bated breath. Well, we've just had a dinner high in garlic content so I guess it should be "baited" breath. Or halitosis.
Hmmm, i'd've been inclined to interpret blovian in this case just as everyone else has; overstated/much-ado-about-nothingness.
My second guess would be that it means something along the order of 'flash in the pan', capitalizing on the metaphorical aspects of the "wind" component in 'bloviate' et al; ie carried on by the wind and thus transitory.
Now, plut, are you going to at least do a warmer-colder-warmer-warmer-WARMER-REDHOT game with us, or will you simply allow us to f[l]ounder along for a few days?
EDIT it wasn't until i reread this thread that i realized that Rhuby already proffered this "blowing over" theory, and stated it more clearly. mea culpa.
>"Lip-less Wonder Will occasionally secretes the fluids of his blovia sac upon the corpus of American letters and arts, and for this, he remains ... "
I would have interpreted the blovia sac therein as a gas bag, but that's based on what I know of "Wonder Will" and bloviate. [btw, the Will thus deflated is the pundit and talking head George Will.]
a gas bag Speaking of which, Chicagos sobriquet "The Windy City", acquired in the late 1800's, was not (as is commonly thought) as a meteorological description. The term was a reference to the city's distinctively windy local politicians.
could it have something to do with an order of progression: antedilluvian ----> dilluvian ----> postdilluvian ---> blovian?
i can't imagine how the wind component to blovian would compare to the flood component to dilluvian, though. (Well, unless it's a WINDows thing... but that'd r-e-a-l-l-y be a stretch.)
Speaking of which, Chicagos sobriquet "The Windy City", acquired in the late 1800's, was not (as is commonly thought) as a meteorological description. The term was a reference to the city's distinctively windy local politicians.
Oh, and there was me blaming it all on the pizza ...
Blovian: Of or pertaining to Blovia, an Utlendic country bordering on Jisteria and presently allied with the Glorious Empire of Ludicrania. Its capital is the Free and Independent City of Ludicrania Falls.
PS
It ain't in the brick and mortar OED so it don't exist.
My second guess would be that it means something along the order of 'flash in the pan' Not bad, Gymkhana. The "dot com bubble" lasted approximately 3 years from fall 1998 when the NASDAQ began its spectacular ascent from 1357 to the pinnacle (over 4000) and then back under 1400 again in September, 2001. This life cycle parallels almost exactly the life cycle of the "Blovian brericauda" (short-tailed shrew), as you will see in the "Lifespan" Chart below. "Blovian" Shrews have more than longevity in common with the "dot com" flame-outs, so it appears. Some extracts from an Encyclopedia will demonstrate. 1. Shrews have the shortest life span of all mammals. 2. The age of senescence is the same for shrews as it is for dot com start-ups - approximately 16 months. The Nasdaq went into its first dramatic and ultimately fatal decline in April 2000, corresponding to the first appearance of "old age" in shrews (and dot coms) after 16 months. 3. Bigger dot coms (like Yahoo!) have a longer life span than smaller, incandescent ones (like Boo.com) ... just like shrews. "The larger species usually have a longer life span than the smaller species." "Life expectancy increases with body weight." 4. Shrews travel at "Internet speed" ... just like the once high-flying dot coms. Shrews almost never sleep and they are always foraging ["looking for first mover advantage]. "The large heat loss experienced by small animals [cash burn rate] must be balanced by a practically uninterrupted intake of calories [venture capital funding]. Accordingly shrews forage continuously and their ravenous appetites are proverbial." See Mammalian Life Spans beginning with the shortest: "Blovian brericauda" (Short-tailed Shrews) below. ("What does the "brericauda" stand for?", you are asking. It stands for "New Era". ) Some Potential Lifespans of Mammals - Group Common Name Scientific Name Years Insectivores Short-tailed shrew Blovian brericauda 2.5 Lesser Hedgehod-tenrec Echinops telfairi 16 Greater White-toothed shrew Crocidura russula 4
plutarch, this reads like so much bloviation to me; here's why:
1) "What does the "brericauda" stand for?", you are asking. It stands for New Era. on the contrary, it means "short-tailed", according to your source, which leaves us to assume that "Blovian" actaully is the *shrew itself*!!
2) The "dot com bubble" lasted approximately 3 years... 3 years is 20% longer than Short-tailed shrew Blovian brericauda 2.5(yrs). this is statistically significant.
3) but here's the kicker. the actual, real, true scientific name of the Short-tailed Shrew is Blarina brevicauda!!! [brevi (short) + cauda (tail)]
About "new era" for "brericauda", I was just funnin withya, Tsuwm. Your latin is obviously better than mine. About that "statistically significant" 20%, this is a literary metaphor not a scientific analysis. Just poetic licence, Tsuwm, as with most literary metaphors including "New Economy". As to "Blovian", there are many, many brands of short-tailed shrews including the one you are promoting and the more eponymous one I have presented.
Tsuwm says: here is the complete* list of google-hits: Blovian brericauda (scientific name of the short-tailed shrew) etc. I found blovian brericauda the same place you did, Tsuwm. I don't mean to be shrewish about this, but its just a metaphor to me. Not a subject for laboratory dissection. Sorry it doesn't work for you. Hmmmm. "Paradigallian Vision". That does have a certain ring to it.
That's 'cause you've got Carpal Tunnel-Vision, Tsuwm. [just kidding] We seem to be going round in circles, Tsuwm. You found "Blovian" in Google and now you insist it doesn't exist. I'm getting dizzy. How about you? Let's just call it a night, OK?
>you insist it doesn't exist.... Let's just call it a night, OK?
sure, just so long as *I can have the last word. what I'm sayin' is that I don't believe that Blovian is the scientific name of *any shrew, short-tailed or no, in spite of what one misguided web site says.
A) As I was scribbling brevicauda and brericauda I noticed a high degree of similarity between the r and the v. Brericauda doesn't rightly mean short-tailed if indeed in means anything. I suspect that the whole thing was a typo/misreading by some transcriber unfamiliar with scientific nomenclature on the level required to catch this kind of mistake.
2) Even if blovian brericauda (or brevicauda) were a proper scientific name, the level of renaissancity required to make the connection to the genus blovian by someone interested in someone's ramblings about the dot com era would be so high as to be vanishingly rare.
And
Þ) Even if we grant someone who would make that connection, the assumption that it was the short life of the shrew that was being alluded to rather than tsuwm's more reasonable shrewishness is somewhat far-fetched.
In short, the assumption that the word blovian would have any other connotation than that of its apparent relative bloviate reeks of obscurantism that, though I, as an accomplished obscurantist, might admire greatly, does not contribute to the recently much maligned communicative function of language.
In short, the assumption that the word blovian would have any other connotation than that of its apparent relative bloviate reeks of obscurantism I'm getting a "bloviated disk" trying to keep up with all of this. If, as you argue, "blovian" is a misspelling in that Google link tsuwm discovered, at least you aren't accusing me of perpetrating that misspelling. (Or are you?) If its a mistake, I am as much a victim as you are. When you get right down to it, "Bloviate", the word you are defending with such pedagogical rectitude isn't an actual word. My dictionary defines "bloviate" as a "slang word" assuming a "mock latin" form. Hence, even if it were true that "Blovian" is a misspelling (and I don't claim to be an expert on any of the dozens of brands of brericaudras on this planet), "Blovian", misspelling or no, has as much right to exist as the slang word "Bloviate". Quite apart from all of that, aren't we getting a little punctilious about all of this? No-one has given a thought to whether or not the metaphor actually works as a metaphor. Some seem to take more pleasure in eviscerating "Blovian's" internal organs than in reflecting on its external graces. Are we poets here or merely plumbers? In any case, if "Blovian" is a corrupted derivative of the corrupted word "bloviate", or if "Blovian" is a non-existent word masquerading as a slang word which is masquerading, in turn, as a legitimate word, namely, "blow", then isn't this a bit of a "bloviation" in a teapot?
the point of all this is, perforce, there is no metaphor if Blovian is not a shrew. QED
even wusser, it still don't work, since the *point of poetic imagery is to make something more *real by likening to something *known ~ and I'll bet my arse not one person in a thousand knows any bloody meaning of blovian.
"Bloviate" ... isn't an actual word. My dictionary defines "bloviate" as a "slang word"
!!! Being slang prevents it from being actual???
No-one has given a thought to whether or not the metaphor actually works as a metaphor.
Þ) Even if we grant someone who would make that connection, the assumption that it was the short life of the shrew that was being alluded to rather than tsuwm's more reasonable shrewishness is somewhat far-fetched. . . . ...the assumption that the word blovian would have any other connotation than that of its apparent relative bloviate...
Sounds to me like I said it didn't work as a metaphor. It's a bad metaphor built on a sand castle in the air.
And, no, I, for one, never accused you of doing anything wrong on purpose.
You didn't coin the word, did you?
Incidentally, tsuwm's other three links lead ultimately to nonexistent sites. No primary evidence for blovian as an "actual" word. There was a fifth site found, that of the Saskatoon Star Kleonix (!) and a refernce to the paper's gossip columnist, Francine Blovian. I'll let y'all make up your own minds as to the "actuality" of this paper[sic] (read the copy on the background) and the metaphor suggested by naming a gossip columnist Blovian.
Dear Plutarch, Let's call up the guy who first said " Blovain Vision" and ask him what he meant. Also, we can ask him, to whom was he speaking. There can't be too many guys who use the word "blovian" in their day-to-day speech.
from Brill's Content online: (you must pay to read) Debunker: Metaphorical Mayhem In a bid to make the Internet accessible, journalists turned to metaphors that obscured, rather than revealed, the real story. by By Geoff Lewis Brills Content Magazine
if this is the article in question, I think Mr. Lewis is on to something here....
[oh, and here's the leadin to the article: The Internet stock "bubble" was pumped up with a lot of hot air -- and even more dubious metaphors by the press. A financial reporter parses the words that helped float the "new economy." ]
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, contains an article about the "dot com bust" and the responsibity the media must take for hyperventilating metaphorically about the "New Economy" and "the Goldrush" in cyperspace. The writer describes the "dot com era" as a "blovian vision". Bet you never heard of the word "blovian"! Bet you think it means "inflated" or "overblown" (just like I did). You won't find "blovian" in an ordinary dictionary, but its use in describing the "dot com era" is very apt. Can anyone guess what it means?
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