Google Talk versus G Chat

[Cross-posted at Literature and Wordplay.]

One challenge I'm finding this semester when teaching composition is how to explain the advantages and disadvantages of jargon.  When I write "jargon," I mean words that are familiar only to a limited number of persons. This vocabulary may be language known only to a certain clique (Goths, hipsters, emos) or persons working certain professions (biologists, athletes, musicians, teachers). 

While jargon is not readily known to all readers, its advantage is that it is concise and brings interesting language to a text. The solution then is that, whenever you use jargon, define it quickly in no more than two sentences, then do not repeat that definition anywhere else in the essay.

As I try to figure out how to more easily teach the uses of jargon in writing, I found this article at The Atlantic, debating the difference between "Google Talk" and "G Chat."  Google owns the term "Google Talk" for its combined instant message and online telephone service available through GMail.  Yet many of its users--and even employees--prefer to say "G Chat," a term that Google does not own (yet). 

Despite Google's preferences and word-ownership, notice why persons would prefer "Google Talk" to "G Chat."  Both are jargon, but as long as you define the term as I did in the paragraph above above, either term works. But "Google Talk" is wordy and unclear--it allows me to talk, but talk through what fashion?  In comparison, the second term, "G Chat," is more concise, matches the branding of "GMail" that Google already uses, and uses the keyword "chat," which is not only more descriptive by denotation and connotation than the word "talk," but is a word that I associate more readily to online conversations, by associating "G Chat" more readily to "chat rooms." Hence not only is "G Chat" faster to say, but it is consistent with other Google Products, and I understand its meaning more easily.

So what do you think--is "G Chat" better than "Google Talk"?

Conference: Masculinity in Superhero Comic Books (NEMLA)

[Cross-posted at Comic Book Masculinity.]

For anyone in Rochester, New York, this March, the Northeast Modern Language Association is hosting a set of panels that should be fascinating for scholars studying comic books, superheroes, and gender. 

The first panel will be a film screening of White Scripts and Black Supermen:  Black Masculinities in Comic Books.  Directed and written by Jonathan Gayles, professor of African-American Studies at Georgia State University, the film features prominent artists, scholars, and cultural critics to examine the degree to which early Black superheroes generally adhered to common stereotypes about Black men.  From the humorous to the offensive, from Whitewash Jones to the Black Panther, late twentieth-century representations of comic book Black masculinity are critically considered.  

White Scripts and Black Supermen is scheduled for Saturday, March 17, at 3:15 PM in the Hyatt Regency Rochester, Room A. 

Immediately following the documentary in the same room is the first part of the panel, “Masculinity in Superhero Comic Books and Films,” beginning Saturday, March 17, at 4:45 PM at the Hyatt Regency Rochester, Room A.  This panel will consider how, with comic books becoming more mainstream, how a variety of works including graphic novels, films, and television shows use the superhero mythos in adherence or subversion of masculine archetypes. 

The first panel will include the following:

“A Real Leap: Luke Cage and the Post-Civil Rights Evolution of Black Masculinity”

Jonathan Gray, John Jay College-CUNY

“Adonis as a Superhero: How Comic Books and Movies Affect Male Body Image”

William Tunningley, Sam Houston State University

“Blasphemous Masculinities: Postmodern Parodic Relationships in The Venture Brothers”

Nathaniel Doherty, SUNY Stony Brook

The second part of the panel will begin the next day, Sunday, March 18, at 8:30 AM in the Rochester Riverside Convention Center, Aqueduct Room CD.  This panel will include the following:

“From Superman to Spider-Man, From Masculinity to Manhood”

Harry Brod, University of Northern Iowa

“Sonic Windows into the Psyche of the Comic Book Superhero in Superman and Batman Begins”

Daniel Robinson, SUNY Buffalo

“Holding out for a Hero: Gender and the Hero in Gaiman’s The Sandman”

Georgia Natishan, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University

“The Mask I Cling To, The Life That I Cannot Let Go: Nite Owl’s Crisis of Identity in Watchmen”

Katy Kress, Old Dominion University

For more information, visit the NEMLA convention web site, or email me at derek.s.mcgrath@gmail.com.

Avengers teaser image with(out) Black Widow

[Cross-posted at Comic Book Masculinity.]

A new teaser image is out for The Avengers.



I just have a few quick observations.  While a teaser will focus on the most well known characters, whether from its preceding films or its source material, in this case films like Captain America and Thor and the Marvel Comics that inspire The Avengers, there is something off-putting to me that this cover presents four men and not the lone woman who is part of the Avengers proper.

For this reason the absence of Hawkeye and Black Widow makes sense, as both were minor characters in other heroes' films.  Consider this other image and how those two characters occupy the background:



But despite how small her role was in Iron Man 2, Black Widow's absence bothers me given her capacity as a fighter both in physical training and intelligence--rather than the trailers that I think were only trying to show off her physique.  Why include four men but no women in your teaser advertisement?

I assume this teaser image was made to appeal to some intended audience of boys under the age of 13, on the argument that boys want to see men, not women, in advertising a blockbuster comic book film.  Again, my argument relies on an assumption and worse yet the intention of the advertisers--and I cannot know their intentions, so I am willing to admit my argument may be flawed or wrong.  But while including Black Widow may be seen as an attempt to balance the gender of the Avengers team--you know, 'cause adding one woman to a team of five men is so "balanced"--I think adding Scarlett Johansson to the teaser image can only help to show that this superhero team is not just a boys' club.

My other assumption is that the removal of Black Widow could be the conventional argument that advertisers just think that girls and women will not be interested in comic books and their resulting lines of toys and collectibles.  Consider whenever you enter a Disney Store and how there is the princess line for girls and now the Marvel line for boys.  Or repeat any story you have heard about how action figures lines always include numerous sets of the male superheroes but few of the female superheroes.

Given that a lot of my research is on Joss Whedon, I hope that Johansson's and even Cobie Smulders's performances in The Avengers will foster more conversations about roles available to women in comic book-inspired films, and that I will not be fixated on one random teaser image.

And do not get me started on the absence of Sam Jackson from this image.