Make Your Point > Archived Issues > BEZEL

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pronounce BEZEL: Say it "BEZZ ull." To hear it, click here. connect this word to others: If you're a poet, an artist, or a designer of any kind, or if you're an avid reader who appreciates healthy margins and paragraph variety, then you know the importance of white space, or negative space: the space left blank around the subject matter. Whether or not you fill it with margin____ (with notes, comments, or doodles in the margins). Let's take that word margin and plop it into an analogy! Ready? MARGIN is to BOOK as _____ is to SMARTPHONE. For the blank, we're looking for a word that means "the 'margin' or empty space around the surface you look at on a smartphone." You could say rim, frame, edge, border or any other general term, but why not pick the most specific one available? That rim around your smartphone's screen is the bezel. You might prefer a thin bezel, if you like a large screen. And you might prefer a thick one, if you like a little more breathing room between your 2D screen and the 3D world. Either way, a bezel is such an important stylistic feature in our devices these days that I bet we'll soon start applying the word bezel in figurative ways. I hope you'll join me on this bleeding edge of the lexicon. (To reveal any word with blanks, give it a click.) make your point with... "BEZEL" Although we know that the word "bezel" came into English through French around the year 1611, we're not sure where it ultimately came from. It first meant "a sloping edge, especially one on a blade." Today, a bezel is a rim, edge, or frame around something, usually one that's sloping or angled, and especially one that's on a blade, a gem, a screen, or a watch face. Part of speech: It's a noun, the countable kind: "Her phone has a very thin bezel."  Other forms: bezels, bezel-free, bezel-less It's got to be closely related to "bevel," right?: Probably not. Even though both terms involve sloping sides, their similarity appears to be a coincidence. How to use it:  When you're being literal, you talk about the bezel of your watch, your rings, your phone, your tablet, your laptop, your television, etc. For devices with bezels so small that they're practically nonexistent, call them "bezel-free" or "bezel-less." And like I mentioned above, because we're getting more particular about the designs we prefer for these devices, we're talking about literal bezels more often, making the word "bezel" ripe for figurative use. So, to get figurative, use "bezel" as a techy substitute for "edge," "frame," "border," or "boundary." You might talk about the bezel around a memory or an experience, or about the bezel separating your skewed worldview from those of other people, or about the bezel-free view of the mountains that you're savoring--because you're actually there. examples: Even the most objective news writers, the ones who report the bare facts, are framing those facts in their own way, coloring a border around them with context, word choice, and syntax. There is no such thing as a bezel-free viewing of the news. "All of our media has margins. Even as computer and phone companies have made bezels ever smaller, we still want there to be a margin, a space between the thing we’re engaging with and the rest of the world."    — Seth Godin, Seth's Blog, 6 November 2019 "We ask Alexa to dim the lights, Siri to tell us the weather, or Google Home to play the new Lizzo album. In order for these devices to do this, they have to be able to hear us. And in order for them to hear us, they have to always be listening. But we weren’t always so welcoming of such auditory invasions. Indeed, these devices—disguised by shiny bezels and colorful lights—are a far cry from the sorts of covert listening technologies we’re used to seeing in spy films or television thrillers."    — Gabrielle Cornish, Slate, 21 August 2019 has this page helped you understand "bezel"? Awesome, I'm glad it helped! Thanks for letting me know! If you have any questions about this word, please message me at Liesl@HiloTutor.com. study it: Explain the meaning of "bezel" without saying "the edge of a screen" or "the border around a device." try it out: Chaim Gartenberg for the Verge writes, "Older laptops with full bezels look like bulky, cumbersome dinosaurs compared to their younger, slimmed-down cousins." And in a video, he adds, "You hate bezels. I hate bezels. Bezels are dead." Talk about whether you agree or disagree. On your phone, your computer, and any other screen device you use, how much of a bezel do your eyes prefer? If you like, use this space to write. (To save your work, copy and paste it into an email or a document.) before you review, play: Spend 20 seconds or more on the game below. Don’t skip straight to the review—let your working memory empty out first. Last month, we played "What's the Word?" On Reddit, r/whatstheword is a community of about 55,000 members: folks who gather to help each other out when they can't think of a particular word. "It's on the tip of my tongue," they say. Or, "This word might not even exist. Help!" In each issue last month, we checked out a post from the community, trying to come up with the word or phrase in question.  From the previous issue: A community member asked, "What's the word for when you are reading a book and run across a word you’ve never seen or heard, so you look it up AND THEN in the next few days the word pops up three or four times in unrelated settings such as the TV meteorologist, a magazine cover on the grocery store, and overheard in conversation?" Answer: Great suggestions included "the frequency illusion," "selective perception," and "confirmation bias." And the most precise name for this experience is the "Baader-Meinhof phenomenon." Next, our game for December: Rhyming Puzzles! I asked the patrons to vote for the game this month: they voted for Rhyming Puzzles, which narrowly beat out the other two options, Song Lyrics & Language Techniques. Thanks so much to the patrons for participating! I'm so glad you guys picked the puzzles, because I had a blast when I sat down to write them.  Here's how to play! I give you a description of something, and you name it in a rhyming phrase. For example, if I say, "This is an ideal environment for a large tree-dwelling lizard--one in which this creature is perfectly happy and peaceful," then you say, "That's iguana nirvana." The answers will get longer and sillier as the month goes on. If you'd like to see the clue, click the link. I'll share each answer the following day. Enjoy! Try this one today: You're a traveling musician, and one of your hired assistants who travels with you is always hanging around you, complimenting you, laughing at your jokes, and stumbling over himself to get you anything you want or need. He's your ______ _____. (Two words, two syllables each. Clue: use this word.) review this word: 1. A near opposite of BEZEL is A. CENTER. B. CONSUMER. C. PROCESSOR. 2. In the Wall Street Journal, Rebecca Malinsky wrote, "For too many years, marketers have taken the simplistic 'shrink it and pink it' approach when creating products for women, with everything from razors to computers becoming diminutive and rosy. The luxury watch world’s similarly reductive way of designing for women? Winnow a timepiece into a delicate bracelet-ish style and _____." A. add a sparkly bezel clasp B. bathe the bezels in diamonds C. tint both hands of the bezels magenta 1. A 2. B a final word: I hope you're enjoying Make Your Point. It's made with love. I'm Liesl Johnson, a reading and writing tutor on a mission to explore, illuminate, and celebrate words. From my blog:    36 ways to study words.    Why we forget words, & how to remember them.    How to use sophisticated words without being awkward. To be a sponsor and include your ad in an issue, please contact me at Liesl@HiloTutor.com. Disclaimer: When I write definitions, I use plain language and stick to the words' common, useful applications. If you're interested in authoritative and multiple definitions of words, I encourage you to check a dictionary. Also, because I'm American, I stick to American English when I share words' meanings, usage, and pronunciations; these elements sometimes vary across world Englishes.