Weekend Link Pack

Longtime readers may recall my 2008 post about the British energy-drink brand Pussy (“Bad Brand Names: The New Champion!”). Now the UK’s advertising regulator has ruled on complaints about Pussy ads. The deadpan ruling is worth your time for passages like this one:

We noted that the slogan in ad (a) stated “The drink’s pure, it's your mind that's the problem” and considered that strongly suggested that the term “pussy” had a secondary meaning which was not “pure” and was a “problem”, and considered that slogan reinforced the colloquial meaning of “pussy” to those older children or implied that that secondary, colloquial meaning was in some way impolite or even offensive or sexually explicit.

Hat tip: S. Quinn on the American Name Society listserv.

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On DuetsBlog (where I am an occasional contributor), Mark Prus of NameFlash considers the names of minor-league baseball teams. I learned a thing or three: for example, the Las Vegas 51s are not so called because they’re one card short of a deck.

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You’d think a new debit card with “Visa Paywave” would involve some sort of waving activity, right? Gotcha! “Sometimes a product name can sound really good, but it can send the wrong signals,” sighs Australian linguablogger Superlinguo.

Comments

[Dan Freiberg]

I could get behind the name if it were "PayWaive."