Fritinancy

Baby Names, Palin Style

If your reaction to the names of Sarah and Todd Palin's children—Track, Bristol, Willow, Piper, and Trig—was "awesome!!! :-)," then you'll be delighted to discover the Sarah Palin Baby Name Generator, which will guide you to your own set of kR33ATiv All-American names.

I put the SPBNG through its paces, using some friends' names. Results (first and middle names):

Fog Piles, Rust Mustang, Bash Budweiser, Knife Pile, Wood Corps. (Those are the girls, duh.)

Clop Clutch, Stick Freedom, Drill Swollen, Turbine Yukon, Flack Gobbler. (The boys.)

My own Palin-style name: Comma Liberty. Whoa. Does that thing know me? Free the serial comma!

(Hat tip: Beancounters, on Twitter.)

P.S. Last night, Writes Like She Talks hosted a liveblogged discussion of the second Sarah Palin interview on ABC. My favorite line came from "Renee" in reference to Palin's assertion that she understands foreign affairs because she can see Russia from Alaska: "I can see the moon. I should be in charge of space policy."

Make Your Own Error Message

It's surprisingly satisfying:

Make your own here, or borrow one from the gallery.

Hat tip to Mike Pope.

February Linkfest

In honor of leap year, an extra helping of links:

Real people are dreaming about presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. And they're sharing their dreams on a couple of blogs known as I Dream of Hillary / I Dream of Barack. "A Christian Clinton-Hater" writes: We were in a car going somewhere. As we talked and things unfolded, I found myself liking her. By the end of the dream, I actually found her desirable. (Via Murketing.) (P.S. Does anyone else remember all the sexual dreams people--OK, women--reported having about Bill Clinton during the 1992 campaign? They were collected in a book, Dreams of Bill, now available online for as little as 20 cents.)

The Dictionary of Newfoundland English presents "the regional lexicon of one of the oldest overseas communities of the English-speaking world." As you might expect, it includes plenty of seafaring terms as well as holdovers from earlier British dialectical items such as droke, dwy, fadge, frore, keecorn, linny, nish, and suant. (Via Errata.)

"Sure as eggs," "get the chop, "up the gum tree": the British expatriate and Florida resident who blogs at A Gentleman's Domain explains those expressions and ten others in "13 British Idioms That I Have Never Heard in North America."

You too can possess a richer, more colorful vocabulary for insulting your enemies! Simply transport yourself to Wikipedia's Pejorative Terms for People, a compilation that includes macacawitz, jíbaro, and shoobie (a New Jersey insult applied to people from Philadelphia). (Hat tip: qwghlm.)

Jay Garmon at TechRepublic has compiled a list of 75 words every sci-fi fan should know. I recognized, um, about seven of them.

Here's how The Ad Generator explains itself: "Words and semantic structures from real corporate slogans are remixed to generate invented slogans, which are then paired with related images from Flickr, thereby creating fake advertisements on the fly." Provocative, beautiful, unsettling. (Via Verbatim.)

The Dictionary of American Regional English--known to fans as DARE--is nearing completion; the final volume will be published next year. In the meantime, you can visit the DARE website and take some quizzes on DARE terms. (Use the left-hand navigation.) Crimmy? Feest? Kiss-me-quick? Good luck! (Via Mike Pope.)

What the Other Naming Blogs Are Saying

(In other words: yeah, I'm still catching up from five days off.)

Catch This on Amazon's new wireless reading device: "On the one hand Kindle has a positive and evocative meaning. As a verb it’s active and suggests exciting or arousing an interest in books. ... On the other hand ... the primary definition means to burn or light on fire. Because this is the first meaning I associate with the word, I immediately thought of book burning, Fahrenheit 451, and kindling."

Name Wire on national slogans: "The UK has never had an official slogan. Even the Spice Girls' era 'Cool Britannia' was more of a proposed and failed media tagline. This may be due to the fact that England 'did not have the same grand cataclysmic moment of creation that other countries did' and thus a rallying cry was not really necessary. And as one student says, 'We're British; we don't do slogans.'"

Igor on bizarre naming practices: "A popular restaurant in Taipei, named 'Modern Toilet' serves up hot and steamy food in a unique kind of bowl."

Thingnamer on automated naming: "I do like name generators. They can help get minds unstuck. When quantity without context is needed they're a great source. But I don't think I would ever have a firm I worked for named by one. And it isn't because I'm a namer. It's because I don't have faith that a machine can understand the complexities of my business, my audience, my goals, and the complexities of developing a name that works."

The Name Inspector on unglamorous metaphors: "It’s interesting to compare the name Twine to the name Apple, which The Name Inspector wrote about some time ago. Both names make technical, abstract things more accessible by associating them with everyday objects. But the name Apple gets a certain glamour from the beauty and the cultural and literary significance of apples. Twine, on the other hand, is decidedly unglamorous. Apples are things you polish and proudly display in a bowl, but twine is something you throw in a drawer or a car trunk and forget about, until you need to use it."

November Linkfest

I'll be posting less frequently this week because of the Thanksgiving holiday. Here are a bunch of links to keep you amused while I'm incommunicado.

The very latest in space-age slang, circa 1962, as reported back then in Time magazine. A sampling: "Creeps" is "itchy skin caused by low pressure in a space capsule." "Sitting fat" means "successfully in orbit."

What do "akimbo," "flippant," and "jumble" have in common? They're all standard English words with a Scandinavian etymology.

The Online Slang Dictionary and Thesaurus is a collaborative project and far from comprehensive, but it's fascinating nonetheless, not least for the way it categorizes words. Under "Things," for example, we have "accomplishment," "gross substance," "limp," "medicine (related to)," and "nothing." Jorge Luis Borges would find himself right at home.

Each Friday the WordPlay Café posts a neologism challenge and invites readers to submit answers. This week's contest: find a better substitute for the awkward verb "to text," as in "I texted him a message." Deadline: Friday, Nov. 23. (Via Mr. Verb.)

Looking for ready-made neologisms? Check out the Unword Dictionary, where you'll find "quat" (past tense of "quit"), "meetnik" (a person who enjoys attending meetings), and "zipple" (a broken poptop on a beverage can). And lots more.

The Phrontistery is where you must go forthwith to find the Compendium of Lost Words, a handy list of two- and three-letter Scrabble words, and wonderful glossaries of terms for fabric, dance styles, contour lines, divination and fortune-telling, unusual animals, and names for names. (A caconym, for example, is a wrongly derived name. I'm sure you'll be able to work it into a sentence.) And, oh yes, much, much more. (What's a phrontistery? "Literally, a 'thinking-place.'")

I've been playing with Randomainer for several days and confess I'm still on the fence, although I find the concept promising. This domain generator creates semantic relations with any word you enter and then uses an algorithm to find available domain names. In my own experiments, I've found Randomainer to be mostly random--it found 48 available domains associated with "naming," but for the life of me I can't see how multdoub.com or droplesb.com (to cite just two of the finds) would burnish my reputation. Your mileage, of course, may vary. And it's worth a try just to fire up your creative synapses. For a long list of free name generators--and remember: with naming, as with most things, you get what you pay for--see Thingnamer's helpful compilation.

April Linkfest

So many links, so little time:

Everyone's talking about those UPS whiteboard ads. Slate.com ad critic Seth Stevenson analyzes why they're so compelling. (If you haven't seen them, he includes three videos in his article.) I hadn't known that the ads were directed by the brilliant Errol Morris or that the guy at the whiteboard is The Martin Agency's Andy Azula, who's the campaign's creative director. And I was surprised to learn from Morris's web site that he knows a lot about graphic facilitation (sometimes called graphic reporting), a technique that's about a zillion times more amazing to watch than the very simplified UPS version.

So you've written a novel and you want to know whether it'll be a best-seller? The mojo's in the title, says Titlescorer, which claims to "scientifically" predict your book's chances of success. Not sure how well it works with nonfiction, but it's worth a shot. (Via The Marketing Minute.)

Gimme that old-time, one-size-fits-all religion: Someone apparently believes the world needs Faith Heels, white athletic socks with words like Hope, Grace, and Blessed printed on the ankle ribbing. Wait--shouldn't they be called Faith Ankles? Actually, on the In-Souls ("Stand on the Word of God") web site the socklet is described thus: "Your Faith is displayed just above your heals" [sic and emphasis added]. I think this is not a parody, but I'm not entirely sure. I'd love to see someone counter with Seven Deadly Sins socks. Wear your Pride! (Via Short Takes, a BrandWeek blog.)

The Internet of tomorrow, as envisioned by AT&T in long-ago 1993 and revisited on Paleo-Future. Picturephones? Natch! Link is to Part 5; scroll down for links to previous installments. More are in the offing. (Via BoingBoing.)

Breakfast of the Gods, created by Brendan Douglas-Jones, is a "totally unauthorized, 'Lord of the Rings'-sized epic starring breakfast cereal mascots" such as Cap'n Crunch and Tony the Tiger. Chapter 1, "The Last Good Morning," has been posted; the next two chapters ("O Cap'n, My Cap'n" and "Apocalypse Yum") are in the works. Go here to read about the making of the epic. (Via The Trademark Blog.)

Goes grrrreat with breakfast cereal: Andrew Davidson's corporate gibberish generator. "Think customer-defined. Think out-of-the-box. Think cutting-edge. But don't think all three at the same time."

I've saved the best link for last. Gather round and read the tale of the Alameda-Weehawken Burrito Tunnel as told by the prodigiously talented Maciej Cegłowski. Never heard of the tunnel? Oh, what you've been missing. When you come back, I'll tell you about the time I toured the Alameda terminus (or is it commencimus?) and was filching a burrito from the pneumatic tube when all of a sudden... (Via Mike's Web Log.)

There's a Word for WordMaker

And that word is "humbug."

The email I received from WordMaker asked: "Do you need an additional tool in finding new names for PRODUCTS, SERVICES, DOMAINS, or COMPANIES?" Well, sure. Who doesn't? But WordMaker "word and name creativity software" ain't it.

Here's what WordMaker claims to do:

• Connect "any keywords related to your business, product or domain with a built-in powerful database." Example: Keyword life becomes biolife, proflilife [sic], lifeoption, extralifestal [huh?].
• Combine any two words. Example: car, engine, motor, vehicle plus fast, safe, powerful become fastcar, powerfulmotor, safevehicle, etc. Wow! Couldn't have done that on my own!
• Blend words in "the amalgamator." Example: rainbow, sky, moon, star become moonstar, starsky [what, no Hutch?], skyrainbow, moonmoon.
• Insert vowels and consonants into words, which "will make your name variants sound better and will add them new shades" (my first tipoff that WordMaker's makers do not know the English as she is spoke; parent company Neomark, a "trademark agency," is based in Montreal). Example: beginning "word" cent and ending "word" rama become centerama, centegrama, centralorama.
• Mixer "is thought-out to help you find unique names, related to your personal name or to any words you like." It's nothing more than an anagram creator: flower becomes felrow, worlef, erflow, etc.

If WordMaker were freeware, I'd consider it useless but harmless. But Wordmaker costs "99 $US" [sic], which puts it in the same category as Nigerian bank-transfer scams.

Still inclined to give it a whirl? First look at the web site's "Benefits" page, where you'll see proof that this is not a company that understands how language works (all bullet points verbatim):

• Money-saving: seeking for a new name with our naming software you can save thousands of dollars 
• Applicable not only the English, it may be used with many languages and adapted to any field of activity
• Granting productivity in name generation work and increasing your creative potential
• Powerful in concept and easy in use

Here's my tip for those of you seeking for a new name applicable not only the English: short cuts don't work. Take the time to learn authentic, proven brainstorming and name-development techniques, or save time and hassles and hire someone who already knows them.

P.S. My colleague Namer X reports the following email exchange with WordMaker:

Namer X to WordMaker:

I'm a freelance namer.

Your product is trying to put me out of a job.

I hope your company goes out of business, soon.

WordMaker to Namer X:

Our software were designed to help you, not to put out of your job.

Name Development on the Cheap

Diane at Strategic Name Development has researched several self-described Web 2.0 name generators that automate the process of naming your company. Sure, they're free, but do they work? I'm fascinated by generators and curious about what constitutes a Web 2.0 name, so I rolled the dice myself.

The results on Web Two Point Oh! and Benjamin's Web 2.0 name generator--well, my results, anyway--were far too random and nonsensical to be practical. (Update, July 22: Benjamin redesigned his generator--that's the correct link in the previous sentence--and it's better but still too clunky for a professional-level naming project.)

I got an error message every time I tried linking to the Razorberry generator.

HackSlash simply displays a list of names (hit "refresh" to see a new list), some of which turn out to have available domains. I like the way this generator goes beyond random letter assemblage to combine phonemes, words, and numbers in more or less credible ways (that is, if "True64" or "StyleTriangles" represent credibility where you live).

My favorite generator is Kira's, which presents only one surprisingly plausible name at a time and allows you to link to Dotster to check its availability. It took me only four attempts to find an available name (Quinyx.com), but it would take me a whole lot longer to backform a company, a product, and a story to accompany it. My next attempt, Rhymbo, also is available--right this minute, anyway--and kinda catchy, I think. (A commando poet?)

Although I make my living developing names for companies and products, I don't discount automated naming programs: they're fun, they're clever, and, if nothing else, they get your creative juices flowing. Some generators, like Benjamin's, force you to think about the key words and concepts behind your business--always a good idea when you're embarking on a naming exercise. And most of them prove that name development is a daunting business in which there's no good substitute for human intelligence.

Buzzword Blending Syndrome

Anyone with a name tag and a company-logo coffee mug can spout a buzzword such as "value-add" and "bandwidth." It takes real skill to combine two buzzwords in a sentence that leaves colleagues and superiors stupefied. Now, thanks to Buzzword Blends, a product of the MBA program at Babson College in Massachusetts, you too can utter inspired nonsense like "To accept path to profitability one must have a sense of externality and take long weekends twice a month."

Hat tip to Matthew Stibbe at Bad Language.

Roll Your Own, Part Deux

In the future, computer algorithms will generate all our ideas. Wait--the future begins tomorrow! Visit The Generator Blog to wallow in hundreds of automatic sign, slogan, name, word, and design generators. Fritterware at its finest.

A few of my favorites:

Brand name generator: enter your name, your "core value" (dynamic? passionate? innovative?) and your "main goal" (global leadership? client satisfaction? conspiracy?), and voila--your new corporate moniker. Mine is "Rebellis."

Web 2.0 company name generator--no input required--and Bullshitr, the Web 2.0 bullshit generator (e.g., "Share semantic life-hacks").

Manhattan socialite name generator: Mine is "Serena van der Woodsen." Where's my damn limo?

IKEA name generator: An Italian site that generates mysterious Swedish product names.

The ever-popular church sign generator and its variant, the Simpsons church sign generator.

Newspaper headline generator. Impress your public!

Official seal generator. Includes a helpful hint about Latin slogans.

And much too much more. Put out the Gone Fishin' sign.

More Roll Your Own.