Watch Fops and Watch Vocabulary
My mistake. For the next five minutes this turkey blathered on and on about how I could never own one, that his watch cost $40,000 and that it was exclusive and limited edition. Now, one is bound to encounter the nouveau riche while working in Carmel, and one develops a certain tolerance for people who are rich show-offs. It is to be expected. Just smile and nod and take their credit card. However, this was over the top as far as pretentious displays of wealth go. It was outrageous that he would take the time to brag about how much his watch cost. Therefore on that day, I coined the term Watch Fop. This guy was a watch fop if there ever was one.
Customers are frequently are sold on the exclusivity of a Swiss watch, and companies use such phrases as "limited edition" and "grand complications" in their sales literature. Both terms are pedantic and obvious. I.e. if someone makes a watch that costs as much as a German sports car, chances are that they can only sell a few hundred of them, hence, the price dictates how "limited edition" it is. You could say that Boeing 747's are limited edition, because there is a discrete number of them the world market is able to bear. Also, using nonsense terms such as "grand complications" invents a vocabulary of exclusivity around brands, but think about this: Most people wearing a watch would not be able to repair it, therefore saying it is complicated is simply obvious. The transmission in my pickup truck is a fascinating piece of mechanical engineering, but you don't hear Ford calling it a "grande complication."
In order to help the reader sort out all the nonsense in the Swiss watch world, I have come up with the following definitions. Please enjoy, and remember, if you are a Watch Fop, try not to take yourself so seriously. Go over to the park and feed the ducks or something.
Definitions:
fop watch - noun, orig. 2004 - 1. An obscenely expensive writswatch worn by nouveau riche who have nothing better to do with their money. 2. An oversized and gaudy wrist watch, designed to show off how much money the wearer spent. Sometimes the show-off factor outweighs the ability to tell actual time, such as art-pieces, or watches with extremely odd shapes, (example: DeWitt.)
watch fop - noun, orig. 2004 - 1. A person who will spend 5 minutes telling you how exclusive and expensive their watch is, if you make the mistake of saying something innocuous like, "nice watch." (see defn. for "turkey"). 2. pretentious show-offs, who take pleasure in talking down to those who complement them by making such remarks as, "You could never own one of these, they are limited edition." (see "ego masturbation"). 3. Someone who subscribes to magazines like Robb Report or International Watch, and is a sucker for corporate-speak and nonsensical watch-language, and owns a watch costing over $20,000.
wanker - noun, orig. 1945. - 1. A chronic masturbator. 2. Someone who buys a fake (a.k.a. "replica") of a fop watch. These people have gone beyond wearing knock-off Rolexes, and seek to impress others with poorly made Chinese copies of Panerai, Ulyses-Nardin, and Girard Perregeaux. Anyone caught wearing a Chinese knock-off should be forced to pay the full price of the Swiss watch in compensation to the manufacturer, and have the fake watch shoved up their arse.
watch language - noun. Swiss watch manufacturers regularly generate new terms to describe their products and have generated their own language to give validation to their brands. For example, they use terms like, "grande complications" and "tourbillon" because they are clique-specific language. Chances are that only watch fops will understand what those terms mean and it promotes feelings of group membership or group exclusion, (depending on which side you're on.) Using such language frequently results in ego masturbation: When a watch fop uses watch-specific words to people who don't understand, the watch fop may gloat that he/she appears more knowledgable. I.e. Ha ha, you don't know what a "tourbillon" is!
tourbillon - noun, orig. 1795 A useless bit of watch construction that was developed in 1795 by Breguet. It is supposed to balance the effects of gravity on the escapement (the little wheel with the spring that goes tick-tock) by rotating it in 1 or 2 extra directions. So, instead of something like a bicycle wheel or a car tire that just "rolls" in a normal way, the tourbillon will rotate the spinning wheel through the Y-axis, (as if the bicycle were turning in a circle.) It has been shown that the tourbillon is a needless piece of overcomplication and does very little to make the watch movement more accurate. However, selling a "tourbillon" has become a fashion statement among watch manufacturers, much in the same way that adding larger wheels and a fin on the back of a vehicle makes certain people believe the car will go faster.
grande complication - noun. A self-important term invented by the watch industry used to describe normal functions of a wrist watch beyond simply telling the hour and minute. Such as: The moon phase, a GMT hand, or chronograph feature. Regardless that stopwatches have been made for over 100 years, and your grandfather clock down the hall tells you where the moon is, having a grande complication makes your watch somehow more special. (see "marketing tricks")
marketing tricks - pl. noun Promoting perceived membership in a group that only exists because other people are led to believe they belong to it. For example, using Tiger Woods in an advertisement for an expensive watch manufactured by the Swatch Group: Customers are led to believe the watch will allow them membership into whatever group Tiger Woods belongs to, i.e. people who play golf at Pebble Beach, or fly in private jets. Marketing tricks include the invention of new language, such as describing a watch convention in a hotel as a "Grand Prix", or referring to normal features of a wrist watch as "complications." Using such language is like saying the fuel injector on a Japanese hatchback is a grande complication: It actually sounds cool to people who don't know any better.
turkey - noun. Someone who will blather on and on about how expensive their watch is. A pretentious show-off.
ego masturbation - noun. Using group specific language to display membership to a clique that others do not belong to. Bragging about something that cost a lot of money, (regardless of the actual usefulness of the article.) (see "turkey")