Follow-ups

Some stuff I’ve seen recently that reminds me of stuff I’ve written about previously:

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X & Y names: Tyler Doyle of A Hundred Monkeys notes the rise of “the blank-and-blank restaurant” in the Bay Area: Fish & Farm, Flour + Water, Box and Bells, Bourbon and Beef, et al. I wrote in 2010 about “X + Y restaurants,” and I have a Pinterest board of X & Y retail names (59 and counting!). 

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Heroes:  Quidsi, the parent company of a clutch of e-tailers (Diapers.com, Soap.com, Look.com, et al.), thinks very highly of its workforce and “culture.” Its employees aren’t just model citizens. They aren’t merely heroes. They’re superheroes! With … superpowers?

 

Quidsi: Latin for “what if.”

 

I wrote about “hero” worship for the Visual Thesaurus in September 2013; I published follow-ups in October 2013 and earlier this month.

By the way, for an interesting take on “our culture” as a code word to screen out older (i.e., over 30) job applicants, see “The Brutal Ageism of Tech” in the New Republic.

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Not your close relative’s X: Intacct, a “cloud accounting company,” wants you to know it ain’t no dinosaur.

 

“This ain’t your grandpa’s financial system.”

 

Earlier posts about “Not your close relative’s X” here and here.

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Super-comparatives: Harry’s—cute name for a shaving company—isn’t just sharp. Or sharper. It’s sharperer. And less expensiver. Clever branding or risky linguistic overreach?

 

Note the apostrophe on the razor handle.

All the self-consciously hip brands are doing it, of course. Here’s a promo for ABC’s “Revenge”; the tagline is “Later. Sexier. Revengier.” 

 

 

Hat tip to Ben Zimmer for the video link.

See my previous posts on closerer and deliciouser, Maker’s-er, funner-er, gooderest, creamier-er-er, mobiler, and huge-ier (et al.).

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Food portmanteaus: Taco Bell is testing a quesarito (a hybrid quesadilla/burrito), which will come as old news to Chipotle customers. The owners of a couple of Shoprite markets in New Jersey claim to have invented the donnoli (hybrid donut/cannoli).  At the Donut Fest in Chicago back in January, an NPR reporter tasted a doughscuit (“an impossible mix of doughnut-fried sweetness and crumbly biscuitness”) And the Portland, Maine, bakery Little Bigs got slapped down in its attempt to sell a cronut imitation as a crauxnut. Little Bigs asked customers to suggest a new name. The winner: C&D (for “cease and desist”).

And this just in: The New York Times reports on the cragel (croissant + bagel), the mallomac (Mallomar + macaron), the scuffin (scone + muffin), and other hybrid baked goods.

For more food mashups, see my most recent post about the “frissant.”

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Caps and consonants: Yep, still a THNG! DSPTCH sells camera straps, bags, and related accessories in San Francisco’s Dogpatch neighborhood. Or is that DGPTCH?

 

Meanwhile, Japanese retail giant Uniqlo has launched SPRZ NY, “a new global project where art and fashion meet, creating something magical.”

 

Spores? Spritz? Something Preternaturally Random and Zany? Nope, nope, nope. Surprise!

More retail vowellessness here, here, here, and here. And here’s my 2012 post about vowelless restaurant names.

Comments

[Jesse]

Great post! Very invigorating and I now feel in the know.

I read another article about superlatives and the story of a boy who wrote to an orange juice company as it said its juice was the "most tastiest" and that was bothering him. The post suggested it was on purpose marketing speak. I do like the razor though. Looks funcionaler. :)

[Jessica]

I like the "Revengier" promo, since it gives a big wink to how over-the-top the show is.

As for X + Y, a new entrant to the Denver dining scene is Olive & Finch (http://www.denverpost.com/restaurantreviews/ci_25362672/dining-review-olive-amp-finch-fine-addition-uptown). Add that to Williams & Graham, Colt & Gray, and Beatrice & Woodsley, among others. Oy.

[Dan Freiberg]

There used to be a restaurant chain named "Steak and Ale." I think they went bankrupt a few years ago. The best thing about the name was that it could be Spoonerized to "Ache and Stale."

[Mudge]

Having made an offhand remark on the cheapening of "hero" in my last blog post, your article about that word caught my eye. Very good. Something you might have missed, though, that might reverse this trend:

Are you familiar with the verb "an hero"? It's a sarcastic colloquialism that deprecates that cheapening of the word.
http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/an-hero