business strategy

Is it a good old word or a bad one? Well it’s certainly an old word. The Online Etymology Dictionary says it goes back to around 1290:

piss (v.) … c.1290, from O.Fr. pissier “urinate” (12c.), from V.L. *pissiare, of imitative origin. As a pure intensifier (cf. piss-poor, piss-ugly, etc.) it dates from World War II. Pissed off “angry, fed up” is 1946, U.S. slang. To piss off “go away” is attested from 1958, chiefly British. Piss and vinegar first attested 1942. Piss-prophet “one who diagnosed diseases by inspection of urine” is attested from 1625. Piss proud “erect upon awakening” is attested from 1796.

It pops up fairly often on beer and wine labels. Above is Horse Piss Beer, made in Louisville, Kentucky. Another beer along these lines is Piss Brand Beer, made in Australia. And then there is Pisse Vieille wine, from Beaujolais. Wiki explains the name thusly:

The Brouilly cru also contains the famous Pisse Vieille vineyard (roughly translated as “piss old woman!”) which received it name from a local legend of a devout Catholic woman who misheard the local priest’s absolution to “Allez! Et ne péchez plus.” (Go! And sin no more.) as “Allez! Et ne pissez plus.” (Go! And piss no more). The vineyard name is...

A lot of labels on this blog speak to men. This one speaks loudly to women. Above are two of four Hello Kitty table wines imported from Italy by USA Wine Imports of New York, NY. Wiki says Hello Kitty is:

one of many simply drawn fictional characters produced by the Japanese company Sanrio. Designed by Ikuko Shimizu, the first product, a vinyl coin purse, was introduced in Japan in 1974, and in the United States in 1976. … The Hello Kitty line has since developed licensing arrangements worth more than $1 billion a year in sales. Examples of products depicting the character include dolls, stickers and greeting cards to clothes, accessories, school supplies, dishes and home appliances.

This might be good for Valentine’s Day. Sanrio has licensed an awful lot of Hello Kitty products, and who would not enjoy a Saturday afternoon flaunting their Hello Kitty Lawnmower?

We never thought we’d see a TTB controversy make it into a big ad in the national media — let alone a full page ad in Time Magazine. The yellow ad is on page 69 of the December 29, 2008 “Person of the Year” double issue and it covers the entire page. The French Office of Champagne is not at all pleased that some non-French wines qualify to be called Champagne, under US law. The ad says “Masquerading as Champagne … isn’t fair. … A legal loophole allows” some names to be misused. In 2006, after many years of negotiations between the US and the European Union, and agreement, TTB set forth the current US rule in TTB Industry Circular 2006-1:

the U.S. made a commitment to seek to change the legal status of [terms like Champagne] to restrict their use solely to wines originating in the applicable EU member state, with certain exceptions. Because the IRC specifically defines semi-generic names, this law must be changed in order to restrict the usage of the names to wines originating in the EU. Assuming the law is so changed, the Agreement contains an exception to this rule. We refer to this exception as the “grandfather” provision. Under the “grandfather” provision, any person or his or her successor...