The Tastiest Suffix

Stumped for a name or a descriptor? You could do what umpty-zillion others have done and tack a word or word part onto -licious. Presto: brandeliciousness!

Now, I should say right here that marketing consultant Kelly Parkinson, who does business as Copylicious, is a personal acquaintance and a very smart, original person whom you should hire if you possibly can. I like her business name quite a lot. In fact, "Copylicious" piqued my interest in brandeliciousness. Thank you, Kelly!

First, a little scholarship, lest you think I'm merely fritter-licious. Delicious entered English around 1300 from Old French delicieus, which can be traced back to Latin de-lacere, to lure away. The Delicious apple was created in 1892 by Iowa farmer Jesse Hiatt; he called it the Hawkeye. Stark Nurseries, which bought the rights, renamed it the Stark Delicious in 1903.

In a pair of 2006 posts on Language Log, Benjamin Zimmer and Arnold Zwicky traced the history of the -licious morpheme in popular culture. Zwicky identified 1992 as a turning point: that's when the Wayne's World movie introduced babelicious. That same year saw the formation of the rap group Blackalicious and the spread of the versatile adjective bootylicious.

But -licious goes back much further in history. A tea-flavored recipe published in the Los Angeles Times in 1963 was described as tea-licious.  In 1958, writes Zimmer, the humorist S.J. Perelman imagined an ad writer coining "Goodylicious." In 1951, Kasco dog food boasted "10 DogLicious Flavors." (Note the ahead-of-its-time intercap.)

And the combining potential of -licious wasn't lost on our 19th-century brethren. Here, via Language Log, is a joke published in the New York Observer & Chronicle on January 3, 1878 :

There are beautiful warm soda springs in Colorado, and people who go bathing in them at once exclaim: "Oh! but this is soda-licious!"

It's hard to beat soda-licious, but that doesn't stop folks from trying. The indispensable Wordlust provides citations for lepro-licious ("like choco-licious, but the dark, sweet joy was replaced with a Biblical disease-o-rama"); pope-o-licious ("mmm ... infallible"); grovelicious ("a close relative of craven-licious, beggar-licious, and plead-o-licious"); and more.

Here's a round-up of -licious brands and brand descriptors, in alphabetical order for your shop-o-licious convenience. I won't pretend that it's comprehensive, but I'm hoping it's a decent start.

Bake-a-Licious. "Where Baking and Creativity Collide!"¹

Barbielicious. A "model portfolio," possibly NSFW.

Beerlicious. "The sublime intersection of beer and food!"²

Blogalicious: A conference for bloggers.

Breath-A-Licious: "The better green bone." For dogs.

Calculicious. "Making calculus delicious." Check out the Calculicious installation at the San Diego Airport.

Candle-Licious³

Chililiciously hot. The slogan of Uncle Chen brand sriracha, photographed in my kitchen:

Cicada-licious. Title of University of Maryland cookbook containing recipes using, yes, cicadas. Plus assorted factoids, e.g.: "Fried wasps, mixed with boiled rice, sugar, and soy sauce was a favorite dish of Emperor Hirohito of Japan." (This may be my favorite -licious. That illustration!)

Currylicious. A restaurant about a mile from my house:

 

Duh-Licious. Easy recipes. On second thought, this one's my favorite.

Eco-licious. Performance fabric used in clothing sold by Athleta.

Fergalicious. Title of a single by pop singer Fergie; also a brand of shoes created/promoted by the singer.

Fontalicious. Typeface site. Warning: painful color scheme and annoying animation.

Goldilicious: Children's book title; also the name of a unicorn belonging to the main character, Pinkalicious.

Herbalicious. It's the Herbalife web address and also an ad line for Adina "herbal elixirs."

 

Kanyelicious. Remember "Imma let you finish, but..."? Use this app to have Kanye West interrupt any website.

Madonnalicious. A fan site.

Nitro:licious. A fashion-news site. Nitrogen? Nitroglycerine? Nitrous oxide? I give up. From the About page: "With an irreverent eye on fashion, [editor-in-chief] Wendy exemplifies the mishmash that defines style today." It's mishmashlicious!

Picklelicious. "Old Tyme New York Style Pickles."

Shiny-Licious. A lip gloss from Maybelline. Thank you, Makeup Bag.

Spa-licious. (Too many to link to.)

Twitterlicious. (Naturally.)

Racialicious. "The intersection of race and pop culture."

Vodkalicious. Not a brand name, but it has more than 11,000 Google hits.

Zombielicious. An album by Zombie Nation, released earlier this year.

Have you spotted other interesting examples of brandeliciousness? Leave a comment.

*

"Dog-licious" ad from Language Log.

___

¹ I propose a moratorium on all "Where X and Y Collide" taglines that don't show proof of collision insurance.

² At least they're not colliding.

³ I don't think you're supposed to eat them.

Comments

[Boothism]

This is quite possibly the best thing I've read in at least the last 38 hours. My hat's off to you. I'm quickly becoming a fan of your wordaliciouness.

[Copylicious]

Finally! The long-awaited 'licious post. I'm honored! Even though I don't think I'll ever be able consume the Chililiciously Hot Sriracha sauce, I can't wait to dig in to some of these links.

I've never told anyone this before, but the inspiration for my business name was actually the rap group Blackalicious. I saw them perform 4 years ago in San Francisco, right around the time I was brainstorming names. Yep, I owe it all to rap!

Kelly

[Nancy Friedman]

@Boothism and @Copylicious: Glad you enjoyed the liciouspalooza!

[Emily]

Not quite a brand name, but remember that Furby toy which was the big thing about a decade ago? When you "fed" one(by pressing its tongue switch) it would sometimes say "Furbalicious!"-- or possibly "Furbylicious", I'm not sure how it was meant to be spelled.

Attempting to search that, however, turns up references to a dog grooming studio called "Furbelicious".

[Erin]

"licious" is so delightfully productive! And you can even sometimes tack further suffixes onto it-- if you're trying to be maybe a tad silly, that is. :) One of my type-1-diabetic Twitter cohorts writes at Diabetesaliciousness: http://diabetesaliciousness.blogspot.com/. (@diabetesalic on Twitter, which I wonder, is it pronounced "diabetes alice" or "diabetes alec"?)