Ticker Translation

The other night, the Girl and I were hanging out and watching some college hoops, when she asked me, all out of the blue like, "What's mnf?"

"Mnf?" I asked. "What the hell are you talking about?"

"Yes, mnf. What is it?"

I was confused. She's quite good with words, and she's generally pretty good at using them. Plus, her diction is such that it wasn't likely a problem with her enunciation. After some probing and clever cross-examination, I found out that this "mnf" was something she had seen on TV. Thanks to the powers of the DVR (which, even though the Comcast version is a piss-poor imitation of the goodness that is a Tivo, did come in handy), I was able to see what she was talking about. The ticker on the bottom of the screen, where ESPN2 shows scores and such had a score category labeled "MNF."

"That's Monday Night Football, baby."

"It is? Why don't they just call it 'NFL?' Isn't it kind of obvious that it's the Monday Night kind?"

I think it has something to do with branding, or name recognition, or some damned fool marketing concept that sounds good on paper. But, to paraphrase Kenny Mayne, concepts aren't played out on paper; they're played on TV sets. And that one is a head-scratcher.