What a coincidence! On Monday I discovered Dysport, the brand name of a new injectable botulism-toxin product similar to Botox. And on Tuesday the e-mailed word of the day from Wordsmith was disport. Clearly, the universe was sending me blogging instructions.
Disport is a verb (to divert or amuse oneself) and a noun (diversion, amusement). It came into English around 1300 from Old French desporter (literally: to carry away). Interestingly, sport took at least a hundred years longer to settle into the vocabulary; it was first a verb (around 1400) and later a noun (around 1440).
And Dysport? It was developed and named by the French pharmaceutical company Ipsen and approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in April 2009 for the treatment of cervical dystonia (severe contraction of the neck muscles). But, like its cousin Botox, it's being widely used for off-label cosmetic purposes. (The toxin temporarily paralyzes facial muscles and reduces the appearance of wrinkles.) It's marketed in the United States by Arizona-based Medicis.
In English, Dysport is pronounced DISS-port, although the spelling could lead to some ambiguity: Surely I'm not the only one tempted to say "Die, sport!" (I haven't heard the name pronounced in French, where it may be closer to dees-PORE.) The Dys- apparently comes from dystonia, the condition the drug treats; the -port may mean "carry away."
Logical, yes? And yet so very bad. Indeed, Ipsen wanted to introduce Dysport to the United States under a different name: Reloxin. For reasons I haven't been able to determine, the FDA disallowed Reloxin.
I've written previously about the unwritten taboo against incorporating the disease or condition into the name of the drug that treats it (e.g., "Clamelle" for chlamydia). Patients don't want a drug that reminds them of their malady; they want a name that promises relief. With Dysport we have an added problem, because dys- is a negative prefix that means abnormal, impaired, or difficult. Dysentery: inflammation of the intestinal tract. Dysplasia: abornomal cell or tissue growth. Dystopia: an anti-utopia. Dyspeptic: suffering from indigestion. The homophone dis-, which has a distinct etymology (Latin for "apart"), has equally negative associations: disagree, dismember, disable, dishonest, dispirited. In fact, disport is the rare exception to the gloomy litany.
It's possible that Dysport is meant to evoke the frolicky associations of disport, but that may be wishful thinking. Respondents in an unscientific Facebook poll conducted by RealSelf.com, a cosmetic-procedures site, said the Dysport name suggested "a sporty vacuum," "a disease," and "a dysfunctional dock."
Of course, "Botox" itself didn't sound particularly appealing when it was approved for cosmetic use in 2002. Not only was the drug made from one of the deadliest poisons known, it put the "bo" of "botulism" and the "tox" of "toxin" right into the name. If Dysport proves to be more effective than Botox—doctors' comments on that RealSelf.com post indicate that it's faster acting—then that name, too, may be less of a liability than it appears.
Meanwhile, it's a pretty big liability.
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Dysport box photo from here.
Hmm . . . I LOVE Reloxin around the house on a nice spring day. My guesses as to why that much more pleasant-sounding mark was refused are two: One, it sounds like "relaxing" and two, it sounds like "locks in." I'll bet those are two qualities the FDA wouldn't want the term to convey. But "Die, Sport," as I also immediately dubbed it, is crappy for every reason you've enumerated.
Posted by: Jessica | February 10, 2010 at 08:09 AM
Jessica: So "relaxing" is verboten but "rest" or "restore" or "restyle," as in Restylane, are OK? The ways of government regulators are such a mystery.
Posted by: Nancy Friedman | February 10, 2010 at 08:29 AM
Nancy, I don't know. This time I'm just making it up. Maybe they just didn't want consumers thinking it had lox in it.
Posted by: Jessica | February 10, 2010 at 10:19 AM
Our publication covers (among other things) human resources technology, an area that keeps yielding software products with pharmacological-sounding names. Yesterday, I got press releases announcing the arrival of Reflexis (for workforce scheduling) and Clarizen (a project management tool for "transparency in workflow management.") They may be great, but it would be nice if product names gave a clue as to their actual use. I suppose ShowUpOnTime or DoYourJob would be too pedestrian.
Posted by: Carroll Lachnit | February 10, 2010 at 12:41 PM
Carroll: Clarizen, the eyedrops preferred by Buddhist monks. And Reflexis, the drug I take whenever I have a hostile kneejerk reaction to lame brand names.
Posted by: Nancy Friedman | February 10, 2010 at 05:18 PM
Catherine de Medici is thought by some to have been an avid poisoner, so a Botox-based drug from a company called Medicis makes a sort of ironic sense. Of course, a manufacturer called Borgia would make even more sense.
Posted by: Michele Hush | February 11, 2010 at 04:34 AM
The 12-year-old in me snickers every time "Aciphex" is advertised on television because of the way the name sounds spoken aloud. I guess it's a GERD remedy, but the name makes it sound like it should treat hemorrhoids.
Posted by: fillyjonk | February 12, 2010 at 09:12 AM