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Those pesky Internet pop-up ads that just don't do nuance

By William Safire
NY TIMES NEWS SERVICE
Sunday, Mar 06, 2005, Page 9

When I was a little kid, I delighted in pop-up books: the paper inside was folded in such a way that when you turned a page, a castle with Rapunzel in it would suddenly appear. I would cry out, "Let down your hair!" and turn the cardboard page to see if she did that to trick the cruel enchantress and help the prince climb up the tower to her chamber.

As a somewhat larger kid, I would take my position at third base and hope the batter would hit a pop-up, easy to catch, and not a line drive that I feared would go right through my chest. The compound noun evoked a cheery image, as did its use as an adjective in pop-up toaster.

Now as a screenager, with all my memories capable of being stored on a portable 3-inch "flash memory drive" -- but with my computer screen controlled by sinister marketing forces -- I pick up the Times to read "Pop-Up Company Tries a New Path." The article reported a snoopcorp's partnership with publishers "that eliminates those pesky pop-up ads." I'll believe that when I can't see them.

The earliest use I can find in the Times of pop-up ad was on May 4, 1967, referring to a commercial display based on the same device that attracted me to Rapunzel in the fairy-tale book: "The Butler Manufacturing Company is running a pop-up ad of a do-it-yourself building in the May issue of Nation's Business."

After the "drag and drop" feature entered the word-processing lingo in the '80s, John Markoff (later of the Times) wrote in InfoWorld on July 18, 1983: "In the Lisa, users point with a mouse at various commands that appear in 'pop-up' menus." It was a natural jump to apply that compound adjective to advertisements on the Internet that suddenly appear on an unsuspecting viewer's screen. Last month, Representative Edward Markey denounced "surreptitiously installed spyware programs" that "often deliver annoying pop-up ads, hijack home pages and can secretly monitor a consumer's use of their [sic] computer."

Last month, the House Commerce subcommittee on which he serves marked up the "Securely Protect Yourself Against Cyber Trespass Act." Though appearing to be an awkward translation from the Chinese, this anti-intrusion legislation was given that strained title to form the acronym "SPY ACT," thereby making the bill's name easier to find on a search engine like Google if you can figure out how to get around the unwelcome pop-ups.

DON'T DO DO-RAG

Soon after George W. Bush became president, Candy Crowley of CNN recalled having asked him, years before, about "the nuance of your answer." She recollected in 2001, "He looked at me, and he said, `In Texas, we don't do nuance.'"

The use of the transitive, action-packed verb do has a long history of being followed by a direct object with no intervening article like a or the. In the 13th century, Catholic penitents would do penance; in the 18th, Americans were eager to do business. But the usage has never been more frequent, or more mocked, than it is today.

Its vogue began, I think, early in the past century with the question to a prospective domestic employee: "Do you do windows?" I have in hand a classified ad from the Times of London of April 25, 1916: "Man wanted for indoor work, to replace footman; able to do windows." As domestic servants became less servile and more demanding, the assertion was often heard, and parodied, "I don't do heavy lifting or windows."

The narcotics lingo of the 1960s advanced the usage: addicts would do acid, do speed, do drugs; no native speaker would say "do the drugs." The lexicographer Sol Steinmetz tells me, "I suspect the narcotics use of the '60s had a slang precursor in do time in prison (1865)."

But when Hollywood agents and producers began replacing have with do in "Let's do lunch," a backlash set in; it was ridiculed as jargon. This had an unexpected effect: political conservatives and foreign-policy hawks glommed onto the vogue construction to reject the basis of questions. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has cheerfully rebuffed questioners with "I don't do diplomacy," "I don't do bumper stickers" and "I don't do quagmires." Undersecretary of State John Bolton (who does diplomacy) brushed aside a query about a carrot-and-stick approach to Iran with a subtle "I don't do carrots."

The to-do about do can be seen in its use in slang nouns. Although to be in deep doo-doo (probably from the excremental euphemism "doing one's duty") has lost currency, the fashion world dominated by teenagers has embraced the do-rag.

I visited a high school in Virginia recently that had this sign on the door: "Please remove bandannas, skullcaps and do-rags" or any other clothing that violated the district's dress policy.

"For the uninitiated," writes Carrie Mason-Draffen in Newsday, "do-rag is essentially a bandanna that African-American women or men like to don ... eminently practical, eminently dress-down ... but some young African-American men are masters at transforming the scarves, or some offshoots, into fashion statements." She notes that "the symbol of World War II working women, Rosie the Riveter, was depicted in posters with her locks peeking out of a do-rag."

Earliest use was in an April 1968 Times article from Saigon by Thomas Johnson quoting a marine recalling indigent blacks in San Francisco "with slicked-down hair and `do-rags.'" What's the metaphoric root? What does a do-rag do, other than upset school officials from France to Virginia? My speculation: a rag is a piece of cloth, often discarded or used for cleaning and dusting; garment-industry people often mock their business as the rag trade. The do comes from hairdo, with the do meaning "style." Thus: a scrap of material worn atop the hairdo is a do-rag.
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