more on wrap rage

[Arnold Zwicky]

> the wikipedia page on wrap rage
> ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wrap_rage )
> traces the expression back to Mackenzie Carpenter, "Today's Packages
> Can Be Murder to Open", Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 05 March 2006
> (  http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/06064/665356-51.stm )
> but other sources go further back, to british sources.  here's a claim
> going back to 2004:
> (http://www.geoffolson.com/page5/page9/page51/page51.html )
>
>   The result is so-called "wrap rage," defined elsewhere as
> "extreme anger caused by product packaging that is difficult to open
> or
> manipulate."In the first reported use of the term, a 2004 article in
> The Times (London) notes the iconic status of music CDs in consumer
> frustration.
>
> and here's a february 2004 BBC cite:
> ( http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/3456645.stm )
>
>   'Wrap rage' hitting the over-50s
>   Older consumers rile against packaging
>   The over-50s are being driven to "wrap rage" by hard to remove food
> packaging, according to a survey.
>
> finally we get a claim taking it back to 2003:
> ( http://www.squidoo.com/Package-Opener-and-Box-Opener-Stand-against-Wrap-Rage
>  )
>
>   Apparently first used in print in a 2003 item in London's Daily
> Telegraph, the term "wrap rage" is rapidly catching on as a name for
> that peculiar combination of irrational frustration and homicidal
> anger brought on by hard-to-remove product packaging. After turning up
> several times in UK media during 2003-4, the phrase gained recognition
> when Consumer Reports used it in a 2006 story announcing the
> magazine's new Oyster Awards, given to the most-fiendishly-packaged
> products of the year. After that, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported
> on the phenomenon, and popular comedian Steven Colbert dedicated a
> segment of his TV show "The Colbert Report" to it [citing the Post-
> Gazette story], as he tried in vain to open a package containing a new
> calculator with a knife.
>
> .....
>
> Colbert is now widely cited as having popularized the expression.  i
> haven't been able to find the date of the show, and the YouTube clip
> of the "word rage" segment is no longer available.
>
> arnold

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