Let’s set aside, for a moment, our puzzlement about why the world needs “gourmet” scented pencils. Let’s instead ask why, in the name of Lewis Carroll*, someone thought it was clever to name those pencils Smencils.
It’s the product name and the company name! They’re both bad.
We get it: smell plus pencil equals Smencil. Unfortunately for the brand, smell is neutral at best and, much of the time, negative. On the spectrum of English-language odor-words, it’s just one degree more positive than stink. Indeed, “Smencil” carries with it a whiff of “No. 2,” and not in the graphite sense.
Alas, there’s more.
“Smencil” looks like the name of a joke product, marketed perhaps in the Yiddish Humor section of the toy store. But “Smen” looks like, well, semen.
Which is not what the company behind these products—it’s based in Southern California, in case you were looking to blame an auslander—has in mind. On the contrary, the earnest web copy strives to impress you with Smencils’ wholesome intentions:
We roll sheets of recycled newspaper to form cylinders that serve as the bodies of the pens. Then the cylinders are hardened and soaked in our gourmet liquid scents (made by an award winning fragrance company). Once they’re dry, we assemble the pens—including the pen caps that identify the scent of each Smen. Lastly, we put each Smen into its own corn-based biodegradable Freshness Tube.
No one loves a corn-based biodegradable Freshness Tube more than I do. But it’s hard to warm up to product names that evoke smegma**, smear, and smelt (“a small fish, Osmerus eperlanus, allied to the salmon, and emitting a peculiar odour”—OED).
(Hat tip: Copy Curmudgeon.)
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* Carroll was the first person to call this sort of word blend a “portmanteau.” He gave us several well-known portmanteaus, including chortle and slithy.
** Lest we forget: Smeg.
Lousy Smarch weather...
Posted by: mph | March 01, 2012 at 07:09 AM
Makes me wonder what's next. The return of scratch-n-sniff stickers, now called Smickers? Scented Post-it pads, on which you can take Smotes? Scented art supplies called Smart Supplies?
Oh, wait. I might buy that last one.
Posted by: 4ndyman | March 01, 2012 at 07:27 AM
About sixty years ago a New York inventor named Harold Barnhard decided that the pocket bulge created by mechanical pencils was a problem crying out for a remedy. (Mechanical pencils? Yes.) So he designed one that was flat except for a thin ridge just the diameter of the pencil lead inside; it was called the Slencil. A few were made and of course his friends (including my folks, which is why I know this) got prototypes.
He also decided that the task of stacking the olives pimento-side out in the jar was too labor intensive, so he designed the Olive Tree that the packers could impale them on. Luckily his wife had a full-time professional job, though at that they weren't prosperous--the family car was a prewar Packard with a busted convertible top, whence its name, the Flying Bathtub.
Posted by: rootlesscosmo | March 01, 2012 at 07:40 AM
@Rootlesscosmo: What a wonderful story! Thanks for sharing it.
Posted by: Nancy Friedman | March 01, 2012 at 07:59 AM
Gourmetscented pencils? Why scented pencils at all?
Posted by: Steve Hall | March 01, 2012 at 09:58 AM
I must confess that there are Smencils IN MY HOUSE. But thankfully no Smens (that I know about).
Posted by: Karen | March 01, 2012 at 11:12 AM
Do you suppose that _all_ of their flavors are considered "gourmet"? Even the classic Bubble Gum, the original Sorta Soda and the smalentine Be Mine?
Posted by: Tom Goodwillie | March 01, 2012 at 06:41 PM
Really, calling to mind both semen AND smegma has to merit some kind of blooper award. Now if they could only work santorum into it ...
Posted by: Jessica | March 01, 2012 at 08:04 PM
Smencils were a BIG DEAL around these parts when the kids were, oh, 6 and 9 or so. Lots of disturbing scenarios when I came across one child or the other huffing from the Freshness Tube. Mercifully they'd moved on before you had to put Semen and Smegma (which was my high school boyfriend's nickname for his cat) into mind. Thanks for the delay.
Posted by: Nancy Davis Kho | March 02, 2012 at 07:32 AM
Would it help to quote Lewis Carroll in our defense? "'When I use a word,' Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, 'it means just what I choose it to mean - neither more nor less.'"
Wondering your thoughts about our new portmanteaus: Pink Llamanade, Kangarootbeer, Mint Chocolate Chipmunk and friends (more at SmanimalWorld.com). They are Smanimals, of course.
Thanks for the mention.
The Smencils Team
Posted by: The Smencils Team | March 07, 2012 at 03:18 PM
"No one loves a corn-based biodegradable Freshness Tube more than I do."
Laugh out loud funny line. Thank you very much.
Posted by: John Kenney | March 08, 2012 at 07:41 AM