about gleaning meaning

“Gleaning Meanings” are two-word rhyming phrases. They’ve always been with us in nursery verse and folk expressions. Increasingly, they are also a feature of the naming and marketing landscape. More and more, you see them cropping up in Consumerproductland, Medialand, Armyland, Pornland and the many other realms of commercial and public discourse. We’ve composed a few ourselves. They’re incredibly sticky, of course. But do they also say something more about us as a culture? You decide.

I used to go looking for gleaning meanings in the course of my daily comings and goings. Now that I’ve become acclimated to them, sometimes it seems as if they come looking for me.