The P’Zone

Speaking of pizza, artisan and otherwise, it has come to my attention (thanks, Karen!) that Pizza Hut sells something called the P’Zone.

Ad from 2008, when the P’Zone became a permanent feature of the Pizza Hut menu.

For a comment on the name, we turn to Will Turner Gordon of Slice, the pizza division of Serious Eats:

I don’t want to depress you nice people, but it’s worth noting that the guy who decided to call Pizza Hut’s calzone the “P’Zone” almost certainly makes more money than you do. In his fantasy world, the apostrophe is a tidy and obvious stand-in for "izzaHut’sVersionOfACal," but to me it creates a pronunciation quandary that far outweighs its intended pith. TV commercials make it clear that we're supposed to call it a “pizz-own,” but I keep reading it as “pee-zone,” which sounds less like a foodstuff than it does a euphemism for the place we’re not supposed to touch each other without explicit consent.

Does the P’Zone pass the taste test? Well, one variety does, says Turner:

The Supremo is sausage with red onion and green pepper. The pepper was mushy and bland and irrelevant, but the onion was surprisingly crisp and bright. The presence of the humble onion managing to just sit there and do its job while all else falls to hell around it is enough to make the Supremo the best of this bad bunch.

(Yep—it’s another sighting of “humble”! Mark your Word of the Year scorecards accordingly.)

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More about Pizza Hut branding here.

Comments

[Namer X]

I've always been appalled by this name! To me, the way Amereicans often put a schwa sound after an apostrophe'd consonant made the first syllable of P'Zone seem like it rhymed with "kiss", another unfortunate association.

In other below-the-waist naming news, the URL "occupymypants.com" is now taken (as of October 7). But "occupyyourpants.com" is still available (as of October 28)!

[Shawna]

Suggested correction: The writer on Slice should be Will Gordon, not Will Turner ("Pirates" on the brain?).

[Nancy Friedman]

Thanks, Shawna!

[Duchesse]

Fast food, fast names. Seems you get the product name you deserve, or is someone taking the pith out of us>