Dazed and confused? Not me. I’m just Lost in the Cheese Aisle.

Thursday, September 23, 2010

UNFORTUNATE NOMENCLATURE

The Missus and I typically watch the local NBC affiliate, WXIA-TV, for our daily dose of Tee-Vee News... They style themselves “11 Alive,” but lately, I’ve started to wonder whether the hamster is dead. That’s as in the expression, “the wheel is turning, but the hamster is dead.”

They have this thing called the Weather Information Zone, you see. Nothing wrong with that. And there’s also nothing wrong with their cute little system by which they rate each day’s weather on a scale from 1 to 11, 1 being “sucky” and 11 being “dead solid perfect.”

Only problem is, they call their rating system...

(wait for it)

...the Wizometer. Really.




I don’t know about you, but when I hear some news announcer say, “Looks like today is gonna be a 9 on the Wizometer,” I’m thinking that it’s very likely that I will be taking a leak.

Is it just me? Is my mind in the gutter (or toilet)? Or is that what you first think of when you hear the word “Wizometer”?

Maybe the good folks at 11 Alive should be thinking of a new name for their weather rating system... before a lot of people get all pissy about it.

5 comments:

BobG said...

Wizometer sounds strange to me, too; it brings a strange image to mind. You're the same age as me, so you probably remember the little spinning flow meter near the top of the old gas pumps, that measured the amount of gas? I keep getting a mental image of a urinal with one of those on top to measure the customer's output.

K-nine said...

As far as I'm concerned...
Wait a minute...
I'll be right back...
I have to pee.


Where's the head on this blog?

Elisson said...

@BobG - I remember those old-style gas pumps! I also recall that there is an actual medical device that measures urinary output. They don't actually call it a "wizometer" (or, more properly, a "whizzometer"), but it accomplishes the task admirably.

LeeAnn said...

It's quite accurate. Most weather reports do tend to piss one off. In fact, the piss-offage is the only accurate thing about weather-reporting. And now I've used up my hyphen-quota. Oops... I'll have to owe for that one.

Anonymous said...

When I wake up in the morning my wizometer is 11.