Cutting Edge

Flipping through the weekly advertising circulars, I noticed a product with an unfamiliar name, Proraso, but I knew what it was: shaving cream. The Latin preposition pro (+ ablative) means "for, on behalf of," and the Latin verb rado, radere, rasi, rasum means "I scrape, scratch, shave." Proraso is an Italian company; the name seems to be an Italian phrase meaning "for shaving." American shaving creams also have interesting names, two of which are Barbasol (from the Latin barba, -ae f. beard + (probably) -sol, from the verb solvo, solvere, solvi, solutum meaning "I loosen, cast off" and Edge, referring to the sharp edge of a razor, but playing also on the expression cutting edge, literally the sharp edge of a razor, but also the figurative on the cutting edge, meaning "up to date, especially at the frontline of innovation." So often that frontline is rooted in the ancient world.

One other shaving product is Burma-Shave, made by an American company that became famous for its advertising. The company began as Burma-Vita (vita, -ae f. is a Latin noun meaning "life"), founded by the father of Clinton Odell of Minnesota;  Odell changed the name to Burma-Shave when he created brushless shaving cream. Documented in The Verse By the Side of the Road by Frank Rowsome, Jr., advertising jingles (short rhyming poems) containing puns were painted on a series of six signs posted along roadsides; my favorite: Past/ Schoolhouses/ Take it slow/ Let the little/ Shavers grow/ Burma-Shave.

Driving forward with Greek and Latin

Friends visiting for the weekend just pulled out of the driveway, and as we were saying our last farewells, my husband and I noticed the tires on the car. My husband noticed the brand (Hankook), because the brand had been recommended to him, and I noticed the model, VENTUS AS, because ventus is the Latin word for “wind.” Having never heard of Hankook before, I searched the Internet and found their global site, where I learned about the scope of the business and interesting tire names. Probably in the not too distant future Hankook tires will be on your radar if not your vehicle, because Hankook is a Korean company, with plants all over the world, making millions of excellent tires. In addition to the VENTUS model, there are also OPTIMO (from the Latin word optimus meaning “very good, excellent, best,” and other models with names rooted in Greek and Latin, such as the KINERGY (from kin, Greek for “move,” and (en)ergy, Greek for “work”) and the DYNAPRO (from Greek dyn meaning “power” and Latin pro meaning “forward”). The DYNAPRO is an excellent name for a tire designed for the toughest pickup truck! I again maintain that knowledge of Greek and Latin helps us understand the world around us and gives us the power to name our inventions and creations, no matter who is doing the inventing and no matter where the inventions are coming into being.