Life is What You Make It

There are more things in heaven and earth, dear business traveler, than are dreamt of in your itinerary

Nearly every day, my e-mail inbox is besieged with press releases, which is good news for you, our readers; it means companies in the travel industry are interested in sharing their achievements, their happenings and their future plans with you in the pages of Business Traveler. But I’ll let you in on a little editor’s secret: Not every press release is newsworthy; in fact, precious few of them rise to the level of real news. Mostly they are born out of the fertile minds of PR types, whose main purpose is to gin up some excitement for their company.

Now for those of you who are unfamiliar with the phrase “gin up,” it means to generate interest in a topic, and it usually implies that there’s very little of substance behind all the attention. For example, one might attempt to gin up enthusiasm for a boring political candidate, a vapid celebrity, a losing sports team.

Now we may ask ourselves (and we did), where does the language pick up an expression like “gin up”? A little research around the Internet uncovered a couple of theories to explain the etymology of the idiom. First, we rejected the possibility that ‘gin’ is a reference to the alcoholic beverage, and that “ginned up” is another way of saying ‘had a snoot full.’

A more likely explanation is that since the 13th century, the word ‘gin’ has been short for “engine”– from the Latin word“ingenium,” which also gives us the word“ingenuity. ”In this context “to gin” was used to mean“to start up or begin. ”Thus “gin up” or start excitement may come from this sense.

My own vote goes to the theory that the phrase comes from horse traders who used to apply ginger (the spice) to the uttermost posteriors of horses to make them appear livelier or race faster. The practice of “gingering” was apparently widespread at one time and it gets the nod from the Oxford English Dictionary as the most likely root of the expression “to gin up.”

One of the most common methods press releases use to “ginger” their news is to include research of some kind. This is also my personal favorite because, with a little thoughtful consideration, one may actually discover some valuable trends and insights in the numbers. For example, a recent survey from National Car Rental on the state of business travel found that 80 percent of business travelers feel they deserve to take a break from work and make time for themselves during business trips.

This statistic validates a real trend in the industry, as more business travelers are making time for“bleisure” activities while they’re on the road. But we really didn’t need a survey to tell us that. More interesting is the stat that 84 percent say they know how to make the most out of life while traveling for business.

“Work/life balance” has become a catch-phrase in the corporate world. It is often seen as something to be achieved, like a 401k contribution or a corner office. In fact, if an etymologist a century from now comes upon that term and tries to figure out its roots, it may be as confusing and obscure as the phrase “ginning up” is for us today. The real meaning is not about balancing work and life. It’s about balancing life; work and travel and family and the rest should be just parts of the whole.

Because life – on the road and off – is what you make it.