Contents
=> “Product Origins: Head & Shoulders and Snickers”
=> “Warmer-Colder” - a no-material guessing game
=> What’s Happening
=> Link: Aigul’s English Economic Site
=> In the Next Issue

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“Product Originas: Head & Shoulders and Snickers”
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Usually we have word origins in “ETs in Russia,” but in the last week I was asked about two product names: Head and Shoulders and Snickers. (Thanks
to Aigul, Zhenya, and Yura for the questions).

Snickers

Snickers is a funny name. People often confuse it with “sneakers”–the shoes. But there’s no relation, and the sound of the middle owel, the short [I], not the long [i] is different.

There is a verb “snicker” in English. It means to laugh slyly, snidely. Poet T.S. Eliot wrote: “I have seen the Eternal Footman hold my coat, and snicker.”

But the real origin? The M&M/Mars company makes Snickers. The Mars family had a horse called Snickers, so they named the candy bar after the horse. That’s it.

Head & Shoulders

This shampoo fights dandruff (little white flakes in your hair) and I suppose
we’re meant to think that our heads and our shoulders will both be clean of dandruff.

But there’s also an idiom involved. To “be head and shoulders above” the rest, or above someone else is to be far superior to them. E.g., “I’m voting for
Poosheesty. He’s head and shoulders above the other candidates for mayor.”

<> Class Activity <>

For teachers, you can make and activity out of the Snickers/Head & Shoulders idea.

Don’t tell the students the real origins. Break them into groups and ask them to
invent an origin for the name of Snickers or Head & Shoulders. Why did the makers of these products give them those names?

Each group will give a brief explanation of their fake origin, and students may vote to see which they think is mostly likely to be true.

But here’s the real the fun part . . .

Ask another teacher or some students from the hall to come in and listen to all the origins. Your students will tell theirs a second time (good practice), but this time you will also ask a couple students to read the true origin too.

Your guests will try to decide which of the origins is real.

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“Warmer-Colder” - a no-material guessing game
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Student #1 thinks of an animal, a country, an object in the room, or something visible through the window outside.

Others try to find out by asking yes/no questions: “Can I see it from here?” “Is it made of wood?” “Is it alive?”

Student #1 can only answer by saying temperature phrases such as:

You’re boiling
You’re hot
You’re getting warmer
You’re getting cooler
You’re cold
You’re freezing

(It helps to draw a thermometer on the board)

These temperatures tell the others how close or far from the answer they are getting. The hotter they are, the closer. When they are freezing, it means they’re really far off.

Example:

Jorge thinks of a chimney on a house across the school yard.

Student #2: Is it in this room?
Jorge: You’re cold.
Student #3: Is it outside?
Jorge: You’re getting warmer.
Student #4: Is it grass?
Jorge: You’re cold.
Student #2: Is it a bird?
Jorge: You’re cold.
Student #3: Is it that house?
Jorge: You’re getting hot.
Student #4: Is it the door?
Jorge: You’re getting cooler.
Student #1: Is it the roof?
Jorge: You’re boiling!
Student #2: The chimney?
Jorge: Yes.

Note: This is a great children’s game, but any level of English learner
will enjoy it. The topic, and the questions of the guessers themselves,
will be the determining factors in the level.

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Link: Aigul’s English Economic Site
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For those interested in English language and economics check out, Aigul Kashenova’s site: http://www.akecon.freenet.kz/index.htm

You’ll find well-organized articles, teaching materials, and some good jokes on the subject of economics. The site is in English and Kazak.

Aigul is Junior Faculty Development Program alumna and attended a language course of Kevin’s in Moldova. She designed the site herself.

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What’s Happening
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Welcome Law students from FESU, and 4th-years from Maria Grigorevna Lebedko’s course. Welcome too to those people who signed up at Vladik’s
American Corner.

We would like to thank Head & Shoulders and Snickers for generous grants to “English Teachers in Russia.” We would LIKE to, but we won’t,
because we didn’t receive anything. Oh well, we can always dream.

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In the Next Issue (around December 20, 2003)
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New words. We’re due for something slangy
and cool, don’t you think?

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Copyright 2003 Kevin McCaughey & I.M. Poosheesty
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