Fritinancy

July Linkfest

Back of the Cereal Box shares my twin obsessions with The Simpsons and baby-name trends. Here he catalogs the offspring of those picturesque country yokels Cletus and Brandine Spuckler. Of the 36 (!) names on the list, my favorite has to be Rubella Scabies. (Hint to Simpsons writers: Malaria and Salmonella would be nice for the next litter.) And a hat tip to Back of the Cereal Box to introducing me to Stuff White Trash People Like, a parody of this well-documented site, itself a sort of parody.

Editrix has been publishing a series of amusing and illuminating interviews called "5 Questions with..." Among the interview subjects: Tom Ruprecht (author of George W. Bush: An Unauthorized Oral History), Stephen J. Dubner (Freakonomics and the Freakonomics blog), and Grammar Girl Mignon Fogarty. From the interview with humorist Dave Barry:

Q: What punctuation mark are you fondest of?

A: I am most fond of the comma, because when you see it on a check, it means there are more numbers coming.

The Name Inspector writes about business names like Zlio and Vlingo "that don't toe the line of normal English phonotactics." Phonotactics was new to me; it's "the study of sound sequences that do and do not occur in a given language."

The Pollywog Blog passes along this sobering lesson in how not to name a product. Dual-N-Band what-what?

Thsrs is an interesting twist on the conventional thesaurus: enter a word, and it suggests shorter synonyms only. Why should you care? Well, it's useful for Twitter posts, where you're limited to 140 characters. (Via All This Chittah Chattah.)

And speaking of shortening, here's Mike Pope on "URL tinyfication" products such as TinyURL, which tranform long URLs into itty-bitty ones--again, handy for Twitter posts and anywhere else a long URL might be broken over two lines. I knew about several of these products, but hadn't known there were at least 41 of them.

By the way, if it's text rather than a URL that you need to condense, TinyPaste is just the thing. Paste your text block into the window--there seems to be no length limit--and TinyPaste will reduce it to a single short URL.

Finally, Goofy noted in a recent comment that he thinks "it's weird how much we fetishize the apostrophe." If that's your vice, indulge it at OUP Blog, where Anatoly Liberman examines the history and function(s) of the little squiggle, and observes, "It was not the brightest day for the English speaking world when the apostrophe invaded its books." And it's a problem not just for Anglophones: here's a site that documents German apostrophe abuse.

New York City's Got the Blues

On the skyline, that is. The New York Times explains:

Two new high-rises, one on the Upper East Side, the other in Brooklyn, a have the same name: Azure, a deep shade of blue. Seem familiar? It should. On the Lower East Side, another new building is called Blue.

Sky House, under construction on East 29th Street, is not to be confused with the Cielo (Italian for “sky”), on East 83rd Street. And then there are Star Tower, in Long Island City, and Solaria, in the Bronx.

It is an unintended consequence of the city’s historic building boom: a traffic jam of similar sounding names. To showcase the sweeping views from buildings with huge, wrap-around windows, real estate developers are flocking to a set of words that evoke the sky, clouds and stars.

Sky-high names, you might say, for sky-high projects. Most units in these buildings are selling for more than $1 million.

Developers generally do their own naming, according to the article. They start

with a list of over 100 names and, working with marketing experts, advertising executives and graphic artists, slowly whittle them down to one. The winner becomes the centerpiece of a marketing campaign, typically costing millions and including newspaper advertisements, Web sites, glossy advertorials and sales centers.

My favorite paragraph in the article is a quote from an executive at Alexico Group, a developer. "That is what people pay for: views, light, sky, air. That is why there is such a huge emphasis on that in these names."

It's not the quote that tickles me. It's the name of the executive: Louise Sunshine.

It Is. (What?) It Is!

Good thing I was on foot when I spotted this billboard:

Because if I'd been toodling by at 30 mph I'd have either (a) thought it was graffiti of zero interest, or (b) been so distracted by "Certified Pre-Owned" vs. "Used" (meaning? and so what?) that I'd have missed what's going on in the lower right-hand corner.

Oh yeah: Grape-Nuts.

You may need to click and enlarge to see the accompanying text: It is what it is in red, "hand-scrawled" type, and this URL: NoGrapesNoNuts.com.

Go ahead and click the link. I'll wait.

Back so soon? Have you recovered from the vertigo induced by that gently oscillating background? Have you decided whether the site is too cool for a brand that's been around since 1898? Not cool enough? Did it make you hungry for a big bowl of NoGrapesNoNuts? Did it answer your questions about the product's name?

OK, I'll spare you the tortured self-questioning and the NoAffectNoInfo Web experience. Here's Straight Dope (from way back in 1982) on how Grape-Nuts got its name. (Short version: grape sugar, nutty flavor.)

Because what really interests me about this Grape-Nuts campaign is the slogan: "It Is What It Is." Which means ... what, exactly? No, it isn't grapes. No, it isn't nuts. It's ... what it is.

Now, Grape-Nuts may be the first brand to appropriate "It is what it is" for commercial purposes (is it? actually, I don't know), but I'd be deeply disappointed to learn that a copywriter was paid and attaboyed to create it. Because selecting "It is what it is" is like playing buzzword bingo in the office. Haven't heard someone say it yet today? Don't worry; you will.

Besides, there's something sort of defeated-sounding about "It is what it is" for a century-old cereal brand. You want excitement, stimulation, flavor? Sorry. Not gonna happen.

Covering the Congressional steroid hearings a few months ago for Slate, Douglas McCollam called "It is what it is" "a sports cliché for our times." Coaches and players wield it shamelessly. Politicians, especially the Bush gang, love it, too: it allows them to sound thoughtful without, you know, having to think. McCollam couldn't identify a single point of origin for the phrase, but found published citations going back to 1996. And much earlier: "Indeed, in An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, philosopher John Locke wrote that 'essence may be taken for the very being of anything, whereby it is what it is.'"

Just last week, also in Slate, Ron Rosenbaum tackled the general subject of catchphrases, observing that "our language has become more catchphrase-driven, catchphrase-focused. So much so that catchphrase self-consciousness has become a phenomenon of its own." I urge anyone interested in language to read the whole article, which covers a lot of ground and, like all of Rosenbaum's writing, is laugh-out-loud funny (as they say). Here, though, I want to focus on Rosenbaum's four stages of catchphrase use: from Stage 1 ("when you first hear a phrase and take pleasure in its imaginative use of language on the literal and metaphorical level") to Stage 4 ("terminal obsolescence, dead phrase walking"). "At the end of the day" is in the latter category, Rosenbaum writes:

It kind of stuns me whenever I find someone still saying "at the end of the day" with a straight face. What are they, stuck on stupid, as they say?

But there's a worse fate than Stage 4, and "it is what it is" is consigned to it:

And then there's the danger that arises when Stage-4, zombie catchphrases that have previously been confined to a subculture escape their niche. We recently saw this happen with "It is what it is," which used to be an all-purpose coach-speak sports-night cliché. But since then, it's broken out and become a wise-sounding but profoundly empty surrogate for wisdom and perspective all too often used by idiot consultants and talking-head political pundits who seek to make themselves sound both worldly and gurulike: "It is what it is." To which one wants to say, using a monosyllabic catchphrase that is a particular favorite of mine and deserves its longevity: "Duh."

At least "It is what it is" doesn't suggest that the is-ness in question is good or bad; it's just that you can't argue it doesn't exist. Is "It is what it is" pop existentialism, at once an acknowledgement of the tragic immutability of being and a challenge to us to "take arms against a sea of troubles," as some well-known guy once said? Or is it an Eastern quietism, a rationale for resignation?

...A lasting catchphrase often earns its longevity because it has some philosophical question buried in it that hooks us. "It is what it is" is something I struggle with: How much should I accept in an "It's all good" way? Much of the time I'd much prefer if "it" isn't what "it" is. That's my story and I'm sticking to it. As they say.

So put that in your bowl of cereal and chew on it. Myself, I like my Grape-Nuts au nuke: cover with milk, heat in the microwave for about two minutes. Tasty! 

Bonus link #1: Andy Griffiths and Don Knotts in a 1964 Grape-Nuts commercial embedded into an episode of "The Andy Griffiths Show." You thought integrated advertising was something new? Hah!

Bonus link #2: Euell Gibbons shilling for Grape-Nuts ("reminds me of wild hickory nuts!") in a 1974 TV spot.

Help Wanted

Job posting on Gigbert (Boston area): monkey typists pay: $100 due: today, 12pm (2 hours) looking for a monkey who can bang on my keyboard to try to find the one random sequence of characters that is not yet taken as a domain name.

Photo: Uncyclopedia.

(Via Joho the Blog (David Weinberger.)

Naming Trends of 2008 (Mid-year Edition)

If 2007 was the Year of Naming Giddily--remember Meebo, Thoof, Kwout, Tapatap, and Oovoo, to cite just a few examples?--then 2008 is shaping up as Reality Bites Back. Real-word names, real-word phrases, and compound names formed from real words are suddenly on the rise. True, some of them make no more sense than last year's silly, baby-talky coinages. But at least they're recognizable, pronounceable, and relatively memorable ... and don't make you feel like a total idiot when you repeat them.

Here are some newly hatched names I've spotted in TechCrunch posts and on Go 2 Web 2.0 ("the complete Web 2.0 directory) this year:

TripSay (travel planner)

RocketOn (massively multiplayer online game)

SodaHead (an opinion community that asks, "What's bubbling in your head?")

Multiply (media sharing)

FriendFeed (lets you read all the posts, Twitters, and links your "friends" have sent)

SocialBrowse (link sharing in Firefox)

Smilebox (create greeting cards, etc., using your photos)

RepairPal¹ (find and rate auto repair shops)

DriverSide (car buying and maintenance)

SearchMe (visual search engine)

RedKaraoke (free karaoke songs)

When Is Good (a meeting scheduler)

TinyPaste (shrinks blocks of text the way TinyURL shrinks long URLs)

Greenplum² (database technology)

SpeakLike (multilingual IM translation)

I Vote for Art (browse, rate, and buy art)

I Took This on My Phone (photo uploading from--you guessed it--your mobile phone)

And here are a few additional mini-trends I've been tracking:

• Syllable and initial-letter clipping: Apture, Posterous.
• More numerals (a continuation of a 2007 trend): Peer39³, 280Slides, Orb 24.
• Inventive domain extensions (another continuation of a 2007 trend): Chi.mp (dot-mp is the country extension of the Mariana Islands); Grou.ps (the site is in English and the company's founders are Turkish, but the domain uses the Palestinian Territories top-level domain, dot-ps).

Read my post about naming trends of 2007.

____

¹ RepairPal is a client of mine. I'll have more to say about my work for them sometime soon.

² Yet another example of the Fruit of the Year category that blossomed in 2007 with RedPlum, American Express Plum card, and Plum magazine.

³ I was certain this had to be a punny company located incongruously in San Francisco's tacky Pier 39 tourist trap. But no: it's in New York City!

Simpsons Brand-o-Rama 2

Back for more fun with fictitious brands from The Simpsons! This year's edition includes brands spotted in The Simpsons Movie, which was released in July 2007 and is now available on DVD. I've also added some new categories: publishing, civic life, culture, industry, military, and sports and recreation. And I've expanded the transportation category; it's now called Travel and Lodging. Dates, when available, refer to original broadcast. Thanks to everyone who left suggestions and comments on the original post, and special thanks to linguist Heidi Harley, whose posts on Simpsons linguistic phenomena inspired this quixotic endeavor.

Food and Beverage

Sconewall Bakery (in Springfield's gay neighborhood; hat tip: Neal Whitman)

Dr. Hippie's Fungus Yums (what Lisa gives to Bart when he decides to give up meat; "Apocalypse Cow," 4/27/08)

Lobsterpolitan (what Homer gets when he asks bartender Moe for "the fanciest drink you got"; "Midnight Towboy," 10/7/07)

Tannen's Fatty Meats (in Springfield's Lower East Side)

Tomacco (Homer's tomato-tobacco hybrid, created when he fertilizes his tomato and tobacco fields with plutonium."E-I-E-I [Annoyed Grunt]," 11/7/99. Although Homer's production method was fictional, in 2003 a real farmer, Rob Baur of Lake Oswego, Oregon, successfully grafted a tomato plant onto the roots of a tobacco plant.)

Beef-O-Ghetti (made in Springfield's Little Italy)

Pepsi B ("for export only"; "Eight Misbehaving," 11/21/99; hat tip: Dave Blake)

The Clogger (new offering from Krusty burger; slogan: "If you can find a greasier burger, you're in Mexico"; The Simpsons Movie)

Fudd Beer (which made all those hillbillies go blind; "Colonel Homer," 3/26/92 (hat tip: Flick)

Chippos (hat tip: Pete K.)

Gorilla's Choice bananas (hat tip: George Cauldron)

Krusty O's Cereal ("Now with a free jagged metal O in every box!" Hat tip: James)

Restaurants and Bars

Live Free or Diner (in New Hampshire; "E Pluribus Wiggum," 1/6/08)

General Chang's Taco Italiano (on Fast Food Alley; "E Pluribus Wiggum")

Dead Lobster ("E Pluribus Wiggum")

Captain Corn Dog Schnitzel Palace ("E Pluribus Wiggum")

Chili Blasters ("E Pluribus Wiggum")

Vesuvius Pizza ("E Pluribus Wiggum")

Shez Parie

Bob's Big Poi Hawaiian restaurant ("Days of Wine and D'oh'ses," 4/9/00)

Taj Mah-All-You-Can-Eat ("Dial N for Nerder," 3/17/08)

Flaming Meaux ("Flaming Moe," 3/5/92. Hat tip: David Griner of AdFreak)

The Cloth Napkin

Texas Cheesecake Depository (hat tip: Darrin)

Uncle Moe's Family Feedbag ("...which narrowly escaped being named Chairman Moe's Magic Wok or Madman Moe's Pressure Cooker." Hat tip: Seymour Butz. Really, that's what he wrote.)

House of Pressed Fish

A Taste of Serbia

Mussolini & Frank's (parody of famous Hollywood hangout Musso & Frank Grill)

Have It Uruguay

The London Broil

Thai Food Factory ("formerly Petco")

Iraq E. Cheese (parody of Chuck E. Cheese)

Gulp 'n' Blow Drive-Through ("I Married Marge," 12/26/91)

The Zesty Fork (The Simpsons Movie)

Red Rash Inn (The Simpsons Movie)

Eski-Moe's (The Simpsons Movie)

Buffet the Hunger Slayer ("The Homer of Seville," 9/30/07)

T.G.I. Fried Eggs ("The Homer of Seville")

Griddler on the Roof ("The Homer of Seville")

Luftwaffles ("The Homer of Seville")

Tipsy McStagger's Good Time Drinking and Eating Emporium ("Flaming Moe," 3/5/92)

Bodacious Frittatas ("The Homer of Seville")

At the Mall (and on Main Street)

Tatters: Clothes for Orphans ("G.I. [Annoyed Grunt]", 11/12/06)

House of No Refunds ("G.I. [Annoyed Grunt]")

Electronics, Etc.

The Sole Provider (a shoe store whose manager is named, ahem, Mr. Friedman; "G.I. [Annoyed Grunt])

Snooze at 11 (mattress store; "Husbands and Knives," 11/18/07)

Mook Mart (convenience store in Guidopolis; "Midnight Towboy," 10/07/07)

Restoration Software ("Ice Cream of Margie [With the Light Blue Hair]," 11/26/06)

Crazy E.T.'s Phone Home (a blend of Crazy Eddie's and the movie E.T.; "Ice Cream of Margie," 11/26/06)

The Brushes Are Coming, The Brushes Are Coming ("Blood Feud," 7/11/91)

Boob Tubery (where Homer buys a satellite dish in "Bart vs. Lisa vs. 3rd Grade," 11/17/02)

Noiseland Arcade (The Simpsons Movie)

Dome Depot (The Simpsons Movie)

Try 'n' Save (hat tip: Jared)

Pay and Park and Pay (hat tip: Jared)

Stoner's Pot Palace kitchen store ("A Milhouse Divided," 12/1/96. Stoner Otto's reaction: "Man, that is flagrant false advertising!" Hat tip: Michael)

The Android's Dungeon (managed by Comic Book Guy; hat tip: KitteKaat)

Pool Sharks (motto: Where the Customer Is Our Chum! hat tip: commenter Joe)

Victor's Secret

Queen Victoria's Secret

Sprawl-Mart

Left-Mart (hat tip: Our Bold Hero)

Lackluster Video ("Catch 'Em If You Can," 4/25/05; also used in The Family Guy straight-to-DVD feature "Stewie Griffin: The Untold Story")

CostMo

Montgomery Warden

SHØP (IKEA parody)

Circuit Circus (sells Sometimes Ready and Never Ready batteries; "Funeral for a Fiend," 11/25/07)

Nuts Landing pet sterilization clinic ("Today I Am a Clown," 12/7/03)

A Bug's Death (exterminator)

Alternative Knifestyles (cutlery store in Springfield's "gayborhood"; "Three Gays of the Condo," 4/13/03; hat tip: Neal Whitman)

Fab Abs ("Three Gays of the Condo")

Monstromart (hat tip: tanyasingsdido)

Yiddle's Practical Jokes (first seen as Yiddle's Jokes; in Springfield's Lower East Side)

The hammock stores of Cypress Creek: Hammock Hut; Hammocks-R-Us; Put Your Butt There; Swing Low, Sweet Chariot. Hat tip: TonyH)

 

Kid Stuff

Boys 'R' Us

Girltech Turbo Diary (what Lisa requests for her birthday on "The Dad Who Knew Too Little," 1/12/03)

Saks Fifth Grade

Krap-E-Latch baby seat ("Moe's Baby Blues," 5/18/03)

Death Kill City II: Death Kill Stories (video game that Bart plays with his therapist--voiced by Meg Ryan--in "Yokel Chords," 3/4/07)

J.R.R. Toykins (toy store in Springfield Mall)

Adults Only

Maison Derriere ("Are they talkin' about the bordello?" "No, the burlesque house!"; "Bart After Dark," 11/24/96; episode features the song "We Put the Spring in Springfield." Hat tip: Seymour Butz)

Sh*tKickers (which Marge pronounces "Shotkickers"; the cowboy bar she goes to in "Marge on the Lam," 11/4/93. Hat tip: Stephen Ockham)

Entertainment

The Opal Show (whose hostess, Opal--an Oprah Winfrey parody--has a boyfriend named Straightman)

The Palm Springfield Report

Ruffintumble's Fun Zone

Rancho Relaxo (just outside Springfield)

"One Guy Named Moe" (show in Springfield's Theater District)

Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick in $$$ (show in Springfield's Theater District)

"Stab-A-Lot: The Itchy & Scratchy Musical" (show in Springfield's Theater District)

Itchy & Scratchy Land (slogan: Built by Imagination and Non-Union Labor; subdivided into Torture Land, Explosion Land, Searing Gas Pain Land, Unnecessary Surgery Land; attractions include The Head Basher, The Mangler, The Blood Bath, Tavern on the Scream, The Log Fall, The Baby Ball Pit, and "Laramie Cigarettes Presents the I&S Mine Field)

Bloodbath Gulch Ghost Town (founded by prostitutes in 1849; attractions include Bob's Brothel, Ed's Brothel, Chuck's Brothel, Tom's Brothel, Buck's Brothel, and Ye Olde Animatronic Saloon; "Kidney Trouble," 5/26/02)

Sports and Recreation

Little Pwagmattasquarmsettport (location of Ned Flanders's beach house; "Summer of 4 Ft. 2," 5/19/96)

Camp See-a-Tree (the camp for underprivileged boys where Homer originally met Lenny;"The Way We Weren't," 5/5/04)

Springy (failed mascot of Springfield's failed Olympic bid; "The Old Man and the 'C' Student," 8/12/01)

Springfield Isotopes (baseball team)

Springfield Atoms (football team)

Springfield Gravelarium (pro wrestling)

Association of Springfield Semi-Pro Boxers (ASSBOX) ("The Homer They Fall," 11/10/96)

The Grateful Gelding stables

Hell's Satans motorcycle club

Culture

Chazz Busby Dance Academy (motto: No Fat Chicks) ("Blame It on Lisa," 3/31/02?)

Opera Academy (motto: No Thin Chicks) ("Blame It on Lisa")

Wordloaf (writers' conference in Vermont; parody of Bread Loaf; "Moe 'N'a Lisa," 11/19/06)

The Jazz Hole (hat tip: Wishydig)

Larry's Chinese Theatre (parody of Grauman's/Mann's Chinese Theatre, Hollywood)

Gee Your Hair Smells Terrific Arena (named after a real hair-care brand sold in the 1970s and 1980s--now back by popular demand!)

Louvre: American Style (art gallery whose owner, "Astrid," is voiced by Isabella Rosselini; "Mom & Pop Art," 4/11/99)

Museum of Sadness and Oppression ("The Dad Who Knew Too Little," 1/12/03)

Museum of Suffering

Homer's Museum of Hollywood Jerks ("When You Dish Upon a Star," 11/8/98)

Springfield Museum (motto: Truth, Knowledge, Gift Shop)

Springsonian Museum (motto: Where the Elite Meet Magritte)

Museum of Sand Paper

Museum of Barnyard Oddities

Museum of Crime (featuring the hippie pot-party exhibit; "The Secret War of Lisa Simpson," 5/18/97)

Industry

Abbatoir & Costello slaughterhouse (motto Where Cows Go from Moo to You; "Apocalypse Cow," 4/27/08)

Burns Construction (motto: Building Cheaply, Charging Dearly;  11/26/06)

Motherloving Sweets and Sugar Company ("Sweet and Sour Marge," 1/20/02)

Southern Cracker (tagline: The Dryyyyyy Cracker; ...)

Groovy Grove Juice Corp. ("D'oh-in' in the Wind," 11/15/98)

Burnsodyne (tagline: The Profit People). Burnsodyne subsidiaries include Springfield Nuclear Power Plant, Little Lisa Recycling Plant, Monty Burns Casino, and Burns Construction Co. (tagline: Building a Better Tomorrow, for Him)

International Brotherhood of Jazz Dancers, Pastry Chefs, and Nuclear Technicians Local 643 ("Last Exit to Springfield," 3/11/93)

Publishing

Fretful Mother magazine (hat tip: Karl Weber)

Angelica Button and the Teacup of Terror (Harry Potter parody; "Smoke on the Daughter," 3/30/08)

Angelica Button and the Deadly Denouement

Angelica Button and the Dragon King's Trundle Bed

The Harpooned Heart (romance novel written by Marge; "Diatribe of a Mad Housewife," 1/25/04)

How to Seduce Your Lousy, Lazy Husband

Will There Ever Be a Rainbow? (Montgomery Burns's autobiography; "Blood Feud," 7/11/91)

Who Wants to Be a Brazillionaire? (book Marge reads on the flight to Brazil; "Blame It on Lisa," 3/31/02)

Military

Operation Enduring Occupation (parody of Occupation Enduring Freedom; in "The Day the Earth Looked Stupid" segment of Treehouse of Horror XVII, 11/5/06, aliens Kang and Kodos wonder why they aren't greeted as liberators)

Fort Clinton ("not that Clinton") ("G.I. [Annoyed Grunt]," 11/12/06)

Fort Fragg ("Brother's Little Helper," 3/5/00)

Fort Springfield (motto: Proud Home of Secret Civilian Mail Opening Project) "Sweet Seymour Skinner's Baadasssss Song," 4/27/94)

Civic Life

Springfield town motto: "A Noble Spirit Embiggens the Smallest Man"

State motto: "Not Just Another State"

Little Newark (Springfield neighborhood)

Crackton (Springfield neighborhood)

Tibet Town (Springfield neighborhood)

Ethnictown ("Where hardworking immigrants dream of becoming lazy overfed Americans")

Springfield Tire Yard ("25 Years and Still Burning Strong")

Dalai Lama Expressway

Dead Weasel Road

Michael Jackson Expressway

Warren Harding Memorial Throughhole

XYZ Street (where Homer enters the third dimension in "Homer³," an episode of "Treehouse of Horror VI," 10/29/95)

League of Uninformed Voters ("Sideshow Bob Roberts," 10/9/94)

"Corruptus in extremis" (motto of mayor's office)

"Liberty and justice for most" (courthouse motto)

Health and Beauty

Ferris Bueller's Day of Beauty Salon ("He Loves to Fly and He D'ohs," 11/26/06)

Viagrogaine (the topical rub for bald, impotent men; "Barting Over," 2/16/03)

Stagnant Springs Spa ("The Great Louse Detective," 12/15/03)

Shapes, a Gym for Women (parody of Curves; "Husbands and Knives," 11/18/07)

Lucky Lindy's Hair Pomade (tagline: You'll never fly solo again! Used by Grandpa Abe. Hat tip: Dene.)

Focusin (a drug for attention-deficit disorder; hat tip: Christian)

Dimoxinil (hair-growth tonic; hat tip: Jon)

John Ford Center for Alcoholic Cowboys

 

Travel and Lodging

Crazy Clown Airlines ("Fear of Flying," 12/18/94)

Springfield Airfield ("birthplace of wind shear")

Springfield Travel (agency slogan: "Now Get Outta Here!")

Buck-U-Bus Line ("Half-Decent Proposal," 2/10/02)

Worst Western motel ("Ask about our sheet rental") (The Day the Violence Died," 3/17/96)

Hotel Pillowmint (where The Who stayed) ("A Tale of Two Springfields," 11/5/00)

Ye Olde Off-Ramp Inn (slogan: We're Now Rat Free) ("Some Enchanted Evening," date tk)

Aphrodite Inn (fantasy room and conference center; includes Camelot Room, Safari Room, Arabian Nights Room, Pharoah's Chamber, Caveman Room, Utility Room)

Sleep-Eazy Motel (some letters are burned out so that the sign reads "Sleazy Motel"; "The Cartridge Family," hat tip: Julia)

Real Estate

Pressboard Estates

Recluse Ranch Estates

 

Education

Springwarts School of Magic ("Wiz Kids" segment of "Treehouse of Horror XII," 11/6/01)

Spellzapoppin' (the school play in "Wiz Kids")

Springfield Christian School (motto: We Put the Fun in Fundamentalist Dogma)

Bovine University

Little Ludwig's Music School

Eastside Ruff-Form School (canine obedience school in "Bart's Dog Gets an F," 3/7/91)

Professor Von Bowser's Sanitarium For Dogs

St. Sebastian's School for Wicked Girls ("Bart's Friend Falls in Love," 5/7/92)

Swigmore University (where Moe studied bartending; "Homer the Moe," 11/18/01)

Homer Simpson Showboating Academy

Eh?

Are your ears burning?

Because, you know, I'm talking about you.

What? Not even a tingle?

Here's something that ought to raise the temperature: a little Passion.

Not the Passion you dab behind your ears--the Passion you put in your ears.

I'll enunciate clearly: the Passion is a highly intelligent hearing instrument with Receiver-in-Canal (RIC) technology and precise Integrated Signal Processing (ISP)

Got it? Passion is a hearing aid, one of several new brands being marketed to a rapidly growing market of Boomers who stood in the front row of one too many rock concerts. And who don't flinch at spending $2,800 to $4,000 per ear to reclaim their sonic youth. 

According to a four-page insert in my daily newspaper, the Passion, from Widex, is "virtually invisible" and "the world's smallest hearing aid." Curiously, although the device disappears inside the ear canal, it's offered "in a luxurious selection of 12 top shell colors with gold and platinum detailing"--perhaps in case you choose to wear your Passion on your sleeve.

Widex's launch effort is straightforward compared to last year's major hearing-device introduction, the Audéo from Phonak. (I wrote about the Audéo's in-your-face ad campaign here.) Unlike Phonak, Widex uses old-fashioned marketing language and conventional images of youngish, satisfied-looking customers. It proclaims the Passion to be "the #1 new hearing aid of the year," a phrase the company has somehow managed to trademark. (Widex has also trademarked "ear candy" and "lifestyle saver," and illustrates the product next to small round candies.)  

But the call to action is unintentionally amusing: "LET US SHOW YOU HOW SMALL THE PASSION REALLY IS!"

When it comes to passion, my own motto is: go big or go home.

Seriously, though, "Passion" strikes me as an off-target name for a hearing aid, even for one that comes in a dozen colors.

As I know from watching older relatives endure countless frustrating experiences, buyers of hearing aids aren't shopping for excitement: they want quality, comfort, clarity, and reliability. Those primary benefits are better communicated by the names of Passion's high-tech competitors: Audéo, Dot from ReSound, Pure from Siemens, and--my favorite--Lyric from InSound Medical. Respectively, those names say hearing, precision, simplicity, and sweet music.

In general, I'm guessing that Widex's strong suit is technology, not nomenclature. Other Widex model names include Inteo (OK, but not strongly evocative), Senso (a bit generic), and Senso Diva. (Yes, our dear friend Diva!) And there's a Bravo and a Bravissimo--gee, wonder which one I'd rather own?

Then there's Widex itself, which looks disconcertingly like Windex while suggesting a rather uncomfortable amplitude.

As for Passion, let's not forget that the word's original meaning is suffering, as in "the passion of Christ." And consider all that passion connotes in contemporary English: Volatility. Jealousy. Crimes of. 

Of course, longtime readers already know my stated objections to the promiscuous use of passion in non-boudoir contexts. Newcomers can catch up here.

___

"Acoustic appliances" (Sears, Roebuck catalog) from here.

Names in the Wild: Artfibers Yarn Store

I don't knit or do anything else of a craftlike nature. (I used to sew my own clothes, but that was long ago.) Still, when my friend Síle Convery, who owns the delightful Knit-One-One studio in Berkeley, asked whether I'd mind accompanying her to a yarn store in San Francisco, I agreed without hesitation. I enjoy playing amateur anthropologist and checking out into other people's obsessions. Besides, I've discovered wonderful names in places outside my usual orbit: gun shops, jewelry-supply stores, bridal boutiques.

Artfibers did not disappoint. To enter the shop, we climbed a steep, narrow stairway that reminded me of the approach to a dance studio. Inside, balls and cones of beautifully colored and textured yarns were neatly displayed in wire baskets. Each yarn variety was labeled and--be still, my heart!--organized alphabetically, the better to appreciate the playful creativity of the names.

I just adore Big Bunz and Bitty Bunz. And I also appreciate that each yarn has a tag with a nicely written story that usually explains the name. "Nanook," for example, is "designed to simulate the fleece of an arctic animal."

Some of the other names I spotted: Tantra, Tasmania, Purr (soft as kitten fur), Tesla, Zoftig (nice and plump, naturally), Ricotta (creamy and thick), Babushka, Cheesecake, Triple Cheesecake, and Phos (a sparkly yarn).

I was told that the store's owner names all the yarns herself. She clearly has a gift for unexpected yet apt metaphors that cross sensory borders. Nicely named!

(The Artfibers website is likewise literate and stylishly executed. How can you not admire an About page titled "Coup de Foudre"?)

How the Tiguan Got Its Name

The story Volkswagen wants us to believe is that "the people" wanted Tiguan, a blend of the German words for tiger (Tiger) and iguana (Leguan). (It's pronounced TEE-gwan.) After all, VW is using "The people want..." as a unifying tagline for all its models, no doubt to emphasize that Volkswagen means "people's car." For the Tiguan, a compact SUV introduced for the 2009 model year, the tagline is "The people want to play, but they want to play nice." (Works best when you imagine it spoken with a German accent.)

VW did in fact team up with AutoBild, publishers of German auto magazines, to sponsor a naming contest in which 350,000 readers cast votes. However, readers didn't suggest the names; they merely voted for names developed by VW's internal marketing group, according to this Dutch fan site. Other names on the ballot included Namib, Rockton, Samun, and Nanuk.

(I am so disappointed Nanuk didn't win. Just think: an ad campaign in which Robin Williams reprises Mork--nanuk-nanuk--and the opportunity for Marin County residents to call their vehicles Nanuk of the North Bay.)

The Dutch site quotes Dr. Wolfgang Bernhard, VW brand management chairman: "This unique event is demonstrative of how Volkswagen is opening up: we made a clear appeal to the market -- potential buyers could help choose the name Tiguan. The positive reaction shows that this is the right approach."

Auto-industry and branding veterans have been more skeptical. Naming agency Igor International sneered: "[I]t is obvious to us that VW stacked the deck, subverted democracy, and got the name they wanted all along. Be careful what you wish for." Senior editor Ed Hellwig of the automobile site Edmunds called Tiguan a "ridiculous name." Motor Trend's Greg N. Brown wrote, "Though the rationale behind melding two animals into one nameplate escapes us (anything both furry and scaly is kind of creepy), the Tiguan is so appealing that its quirky name shouldn't deter shoppers[.]" The Dutch fan site says Tiguan "continues a tradition of utterly confusing names."

To that last point: really? Past VW model names in North America have fallen into three general categories: Smallish, Sorta Cute Animals (Beetle, Rabbit, Fox), Blowin' in the Wind (Golf is German for "gulf," as in "gulfstream"; Passat means "trade wind"; Jetta means "jet stream"); and Miscellaneous Weirdness That Probably Sounds Dandy in Deutsch. In the third category we find Tiguan as well as Sharan (from a Persian word meaning "carrier of kings"), Touran (from tour + Sharan), and Touareg (from the name of a nomadic North African tribe).

Most of those names are distinctive and unconfusing, if a bit strange to American ears accustomed to automobile names that evoke romantic places or large, threatening animals. Touran, Touareg, and Tiguan do invite confusion. Although it's not unusual for carmakers to bestow alliterative names on their products (Ford Fairlane, Focus, Fiesta; Dodge Dakota, Dart, Dynasty, Durango), it's much more challenging to keep them straight when the names are exotic, invented, or meaningless.

As for the tiger-iguana synthesis, I'm 50-50. Sure, I want a tiger in my tank, but a large, coldblooded lizard that stops moving when the temperature falls? Not so much.

Photo from Edmunds.

Jonesing

For 38 years, Colorado's oldest and largest public-relations and advertising company was called PRACO, an acronym for Public Relations Advertising Company. Not by any measure a stellar name. Bland. Boring. And possibly, as Denver Post columnist Al Lewis writes, too easily confused with the name of a spaghetti sauce. (Or a credit union.)

So a name change was probably inevitable. Still, some people, Lewis included, were taken aback when PRACO last week announced that its new name would be--are you sitting down?--Vladimir Jones.

The Post's Lewis comments:

For me, Vladimir brings to mind Vlad the Impaler, a medieval warlord who skewered so many humans on sharpened posts that he inspired Bram Stoker's "Dracula."

Another Vladimir is Nabokov, whose novel "Lolita" enumerated the ecstasies and challenges of romancing an underage girl.

And then there's Jones.

Isn't that what you do when you run out of heroin?

Lewis overlooked two additional Vladimirs of historic significance, Lenin and Putin.

Agency co-founder and CEO Nechie (Nechie? Does that rhyme with "sketchy" or with "Trekkie"?) Hall, explains the reason for the change: "Praco did not have the provocative, sophisticated interest that we wanted to communicate."

As for the radical departure, Hall said: "You know how agencies always name themselves after their principals? We just didn't want to do that."

According to the Vladimir Jones website--a dark, inscrutable assemblage of spinning marbles and Aztec, Japanese, and taxidermy motifs--the agency "tested a lot of names, and Vladimir Jones consistenly rose to the top."

Chief Creative Officer George Olson knows what's on your mind:

The first thing everyone asks is, 'is he real?' The answer is, of course, yes. Vladimir Jones is the very real person inside everybody who struggles with the great dualities of our business. Is it art or commerce? Do we engage the heart or head? Do we go by research or our gut? Are we about winning sales or souls? Vladimir Jones is our way of saying we choose both.

A name like "Vladimir Jones" comes along every so often in that special place I think of as CreativeLand. When agencies Whittman-Hart and UsWeb/CKS merged in 2000 to form a giant agency whose clients included Apple Computer, the new entity was named marchFIRST, reportedly because the new CEO had a blinding insight on a Hawaiian beach that the company's first day of trading would serve as a fit appellation. (His vision included the unorthodox spelling, although most media outlets ignored it.) Just over a year later, marchFIRST filed for bankruptcy.

Then there was Monday, the name PricewaterhouseCoopers selected in May 2002 for its newly divested consulting business because "Monday represents a fresh start." Apparently no one at PwC had considered that Monday also represents everyone's least favorite day of the week. In October 2002, PwC accepted a $3.9 billion offer from IBM to buy the consultancy, which lost its name along with its PwC identity. 

So, good luck to you, Vladimir Jones! My prediction: within five years, if the agency continues to do good work for its clients, the new name will have been leached of all its strangeness and controversy and become just another namelike set of syllables, no odder than Ogilvy & Mather or Goodby, Silverstein. It would help, however, if Hall and Olson took a critical look at vladimirjones.com, which really needs to get its act together. Start with jettisoning the goth imagery, then revisit cringeworthy copy like "Today's consumer is a rare, perfect snowflake" and "You can take the advice of Gandhi and be the change."

Take the advice, Vladimir Jones. Be the change.

(Hat tip to the mysterious and thoughtful Mr. Wuxtry, who forwarded the Post link in an e-mail.)