Until yesterday, I thought I had finally mastered all the lingo I would ever need to know inside a Starbucks—half-caf this, double-shot that, skim, part-skim, latte, Americano, tall, grande, venti. You know the drill. So I was a bit disoriented when I arrived at the Starbucks on Astor Place to see the doors plastered with words like shalloon, meticulosity and eudaemonic and corresponding flash cards at the counter. At first, I panicked at the thought of having to learn a whole new set of coffee-slang terms. (Is shalloon some kind of new pastry?) But no, it's part of a promotion for New Line Cinema’s Akeelah and the Bee, an inspirational rags-to-Latin-roots tale of an 11-year-old spelling bee upstart and the Laurence Fishburne character who mentors her. Apparently, it’s just one of a few new ways studios are promoting their films, according to this story in The New York Times. Gee, and those "Coming Soon" posters at the multiplex were working so well.

—Posted by Deanna Zammit