California bill seeks to define ‘hot dog’

NPR reported on a recent California bill that, among other things, defines a hot dog as: “a whole, cured, cooked sausage that is skinless or stuffed in casing, that may be known as a frankfurter, frank, furter, wiener, red hot, Vienna, bologna, garlic bologna, or knockwurst, and that may be served in a bun or roll.” Sounds about right to me.

But why are legislators defining tasty meat treats, you ask? Well, the bill is actually about the California food code and this particular definition is being pushed by health inspectors who want to emphasize that hot dogs should be cured or pre-cooked. That means “street vendors who reheat them are held to different health standards than restaurants.”

The New York Times accidentally insults Scotland

Andy Murray  clinched the Wimbledon title on Sunday, making him the first British person (as in from Great Britain — including Scotland and Ireland) to win the title in 77 years. Despite the pressure placed on him from, well, just about everyone in Great Britain, he played the tournament of his life. Even coach Ivan Lendl couldn’t help but smile.

The New York Times heralded Murray’s win with this headline: “After 77 Years, Murray and England Rule” (they since changed England to Britain). This touched a nerve and set off a fury on Twitter because Murray is Scottish. And if you ask Scottish people, Scotland is not England. They are two separate entities that are both part of Great Britain.

Washington state removes all gender-biased language from the books

Reuters reported that earlier this month, Washington (my former home state with strong female political leadership) became the fourth state to officially remove gender-biased language from the law, joining Florida, North Carolina, and Illinois. This means that 40,000 words in state statutes have been changed to reflect more gender-neutral language.

What exactly does this look like? Well, ‘penmanship’ is now ‘handwriting,’ ‘fisherman’ is now ‘fisher’, and ‘his’ is now ‘his and hers’, to name a few.  Lawmakers said this ended up being a much bigger project than they envisioned, but their hope is that removing sexism from official language is a first step towards combatting it in our daily lives.