Amazing Shapeshifter [David’s blog on DR Thursday]

Posted on September 17, 2026 by davidrobinsoncreative

Corking: white linear scars that indicate sweeter, fully ripe pepper with good flavor

To me, corking is a term exclusive to wine bottles. It comes at the moment when, sadly, you decide that one glass is enough. And then, recently, I found myself at a farm stand gaping at the beautiful markings on a basket of jalapeno peppers. “What is that?” I asked, pointing at the peppers.

“Corking.” While nature is a crazy good designer, people have a genuinely hard time creating words to express the beautiful.

In times gone by, “corking” meant “wonderful” or “splendid”. In a past century I might have written, “Nature is a corking good designer.”

Corking precedes “rad” by a few generations but means the same thing. Today you might hear “slaps” or “fire”. Language is an amazing shapeshifter. I’d have completely misunderstood a Gen Z-er, admiring the basket of corking peppers, who said, “Those peppers are fire!”

Do you remember when “bad” meant “good”?

Sometimes I think it is a miracle that we can communicate at all.

When I was young my grandparents used the phrase, “She’s a corker!” It meant “very funny”. We boomers might say, “She’s a riot!”

I bumbled upon this quote from a 16th century French writer, Michel de Montaigne, and thought it more relevant today than when he wrote it: “The greater part of the world’s troubles are due to questions of grammar.”

We currently communicate by text. Condensing our grammar inflates our troubles. We somehow believe language efficiency produces effective communication. We have eliminated time for complexity. We live sound byte to sound byte.

We are learning that governance by text is an especially dubious affair. Efficient word count is provocative but certainly less-than-effective.

These days I might text, “The world is on fire!” and a Gen Z-er might misunderstand me completely. They’d understand the opposite of what I intended. For me, the “world is on fire” does not mean that it is rad or the bomb or slaps. It is definitely not corking.

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Bonus Snark Addition: We consistently invent new words for old concepts so the mistakes of the past seem like new territory. Perhaps this is why history repeats itself? Today, instead of “Schutzstaffel” (condensed into SS), we say ICE. Instead of Nazi Party, we say MAGA Republican. Different words, same meaning. Neither is corking.