Fritinancy

September linkfest

I’ve read more books about Trump, Trumpism, and What It All Means than is probably healthy for me, but until I read Thank You for Your Servitude, by Mark Leibovich (Penguin Random House, 2022), I’d never laughed my way through a Trump book. Leibovich, a veteran Washington correspondent (New York Times, The Atlantic), focuses not on “your favorite president” but on the lickspittles and soul-sellers who sought relevance through their obeisance to him, most notably Senators Rubio (R-FL), Cruz (R-TX), and Graham (R-SC), all of whom had been loudly contemptuous about TFG  before he became the nominee and they made the bread-butter connection. Leibovich is the rare insider with an outsider’s sense of irony, and he’s a master of the snappy sentence. Here’s one example, about former Republican National Committee Reince Priebus, who became 45’s much-put-upon first chief of staff: “No matter how much Trump had roiled the Republican water, it remained Priebus’s job to carry it.”

April linkfest

This month I’ve been reading Stiffed: The Roots of Modern Male Rage, by Susan Faludi. Actually, I’ve been re-reading it; the book was originally published in 1999 with the subtitle The Betrayal of the American Man and was reissued in 2019 with a new author’s foreword that adds a Trump-era, #MeToo perspective. Faludi is a superb researcher, interviewer, and writer (and believe me, that’s a tough trifecta), and Stiffed—what a perfect title—holds up shockingly well. Faludi’s mid-1990s reporting took her to Vietnam veterans, diehard Cleveland Browns fans, an Alternatives to Violence group, laid-off defense workers, and meetings of Promise Keepers, a Christian men’s association. She investigates the post-World War II redefinition of masculinity as “something to drape over the body, not draw from inner resources” and to be “displayed, not demonstrated.” I couldn’t help reflecting on Stiffed when I read a recent New York Times roundtable discussion with eight men who described themselves as politically conservative and who repeatedly expressed a wistful longing for days gone by—the same days, some 25 years ago, that Faludi wrote about: a time of layoffs and gang violence and painful domestic rifts. Moral: Beware the nostalgia trap and the Golden Age fallacy; there never were any good old days, except for the ones that seemed good because you were a little kid and didn’t know any better. (You may also be interested in the letters to the editor about that roundtable discussion. I’ve unlocked both links so that nonsubscribers can access them.)

 

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Why A-list names often aren’t A+ clients. (Nora Trice for A Hundred Monkeys)

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Attention, all you skinflints frugal people! Here are some of my Visual Thesaurus columns that are now unlocked and available to non-subscribers: All about the -core suffix; my picks for brand names of the year for 2021; the lingo of film noir. Don’t you wish you’d read them earlier? You can—a subscription is just $19.95 a year! Give a gift to yourself, or to Mom for Mother’s Day!

November Linkfest

The leaves are falling, the turkey’s defrosting: It must be time for the first Word of the Year 2012 announcement! Oxford Dictionaries, the traditional early bird, picked one WOTY for the US, GIF (the verb), and one for the UK, omnishambles. For background on omnishambles—which made a brief appearance in the US this year as well—see my post on “wazzock.” And for background on how Oxford chose GIF, see this hilariously be-GIFed blog post. 

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Turducken: chicken stuffed inside duck stuffed inside turkey. Cherpumple: cherry, pumpkin, and apple pies stuffed inside cake. Now online dictionary Wordnik invites readers to invent a new Thanksgiving-related Franken-word (portmanteau). “It could be a (horrific) new food, a feeling, or a phenomenon. The only rules are that they combine two or more words, and that they have to do with turkey-day.” Tweet your nominations with the hashtag #turkeyword.

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This one goes out to all you graphic designers and creative directors: horrible client feedback turned into hilarious works of art. (Full gallery at SharpSuits.net.)

“I’ll know what I want when I see it.” – Clients everywhere

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Astronomy and space startup Uwingu – that’s oo-WING-oo, the Swahili word for “sky” – is building “a baby book of names” for newly discovered planets. For 99 cents per nomination, you can submit a name to the database; for another 99 cents, you can vote for your favorite name on the list. The money goes to a good cause, of course. According to the Bad Astronomy blog, “The folks in charge are professional astronomers and space scientists at the tops of their fields, people like Alan Stern and Pamela Gay.”

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Cast your vote for the name of the year at Baby Name Wizard. The NOTY “isn't necessarily the most popular baby name,” writes BNW’s Laura Wattenberg. “It’s a name that changed during the course of the year, and points to more changes around us. It’s a one-name time capsule that reminds us of how names are woven into our lives, connecting to and reflecting everything that goes on in our culture.” The 2011 winner was Siri.

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Do we need a new name for the fiscal cliff? The Washington Post’s Ezra Klein proposes “austerity crisis”; his readers have their own suggestions, including Policy Meltdown, Lemmings Moment, Fiscal Spliff, and Mole Hill. (What’s the fiscal cliff, you ask? Here you go.)

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Corporate tagline or university motto? Take the quiz (it’s tougher than you’d think).

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Minor hockey (not to be confused with minor-league hockey) is divided into narrow age ranges, and the names for those ranges vary wildly and whimsically around the world. In Canada the 9-10 age group is called “Atom”; in France the 10-11 group is called Poussins (“young chickens”). More minor hockey lore at (where else?) Wikipedia. Hat tip: Bruce Fulton.

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Remember Cuil, the search engine that was supposed to be a Google-killer? It died in 2011, possibly of pronunciation failure. “You might think that making a pronounceable name is a no brainer,” writes Andrew Hennigan on his blog about communications, “but there are actually several separate issues you need to think about, and Cuil got all three wrong.” (Hat tip: FussFactory.)

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Green-suiter, Yuk, 2% Club and other West Point slang: a lexicon.

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What does the “signature” mean in “signature burrito”? Lexicographer Orin Hargraves, writing for the Macmillan Dictionary blog, says “signature” has been “so diluted by modern usage as to become meaningless.”

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Speaking of meaningless, William Germano has had it with passion. He writes in Lingua Franca: “In its new, overexposed phase, passion has come to mean something else. I’d hazard the definition ‘an outsized, all-consuming enthusiasm that leads to achievement.’ That seems to be where passion is drifting in our outcome-driven society: It’s become a word signifying the precondition of success.” I’ve written about passion overload a number of times myself, starting with a 2006 post, “Our Passion Is Your Problem.”

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The Romney campaign named its (badly botched) get-out-the-vote program Project ORCA, but why? Language Log’s Mark Liberman goes fishing: “It would be a little weird, in my opinion, to name a GOTV program after a boat used to hunt a fictional monster shark. Clearly the shark would be Obama, or perhaps Obama’s appeal — but in that metaphor, where are the Romney voters?”

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After Hurricane Sandy struck, New York City gained a new neighborhood: SoPo, for “South of Power.” As The Atlantic Wire’s Jen Doll tells it, “New York City has a history with this sort of name.” (Hat tip: @nextmoon.)

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From the public-radio show A Way With Words, hosted by Grant Barrett and Martha Barnette, here’s an excellent list of reference resources for writers and word lovers. A good place to start your holiday shopping!

But that’s a car name!

A few years ago I was hired to name an apple. Not an Apple: an apple, the kind that grows on a tree. This particular apple was a new cultivar that needed a name to compete against Golden Delicious and Pippin and Winesap in supermarkets. My client was the growers’ group that had developed the fruit.

I presented several names, including one I thought was an especially strong candidate: Avalon. The name had an excellent and appropriate story, I told the client. It comes from Welsh afal, which means “apple.” (Etymology doesn’t always matter, but in this case it was too perfect to ignore.) In the Arthurian legends, Avalon is the island where Excalibur was forged. (Power, magic, legend: all positive attributes.) Avalon was sometimes called “the Fortunate Isle.” (Happy apples!) Add to that, I said, the fact that the word rolls deliciously off the tongue.

There was silence on the other end of the phone line. Finally, the client’s spokesman spoke:

“Avalon,” he said tentatively. “Isn’t that a car name?” 

 

Death Takes a Crab Cake

Here's where I met a client for lunch yesterday:

Note the Xed-out eye. Yes, that fish is pining for the fjords.

 

By most criteria, "The Dead Fish" would be considered a very bad name indeed for a restaurant, or almost anything else. But every so often a contrary approach works, thanks to chutzpah, charm, and storytelling skill.

Here, from the menu, is Chef Andrea Froncillo's "Dead Fish Story":

When I was a boy growing up in Italy, I loved to watch my Nonna (grandma) work in the kitchen. The catch of the day—be it calamari, crab or a variety of fresh fish—was magic in Nonna's able hands.

Now my Nonna was a little Italian grandma with a big Italian heart. Friends, neighbors, even the local fishermen all knew, if you made your way to Nonna's when you smelled that wonderful fish cooking, you'd be welcome to a plate.

With so many people clamoring for her cooking, Nonna couldn't be bothered with small details. She never followed a recipe—she just stirred and sampled. And she never remembered the names of the fish she used!!

Whenever I would ask, "Nonna, what kind of fish is this?" she would shrug her shoulders and smile—"IT'S A DEAD FISH!!" Everyone laughed and had a great time.

The menu doesn't stop with a good story. It carries out the theme with category names: Drink-Like-A-Fish Cocktails (which include Crabby Mood Martini and Fish Breath Mint Julep), Recently Demised Fish of the Day, and Other Dead Things (prime rib, short rib, lamb, and filet mignon; the illustration here is of a dead cow, hooves in the air).

The restaurant's phone number is 510-787-DEAD.

Did I mention this is a waterfront restaurant, in the tiny San Pablo Bay town of Crockett?*

The view, needless to say, is killer.

And if you don't want a cocktail, I can suggest the perfect wine pairing.

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* Crockett is that increasingly rare thing, especially in California: a company town. For more than a century, the company has been C&H Sugar, which happens to be my client. The refinery is still active, and still a major landmark. Once upon a time, C&H used to advertise on TV; here are 10 of those old commercials. I love that jingle!

December Linkfest

Didn't get everything on your Chanukah list? Haven't received any Festivus invitations? Cheer up: I have goodies to spare.

First course, more year-end lists:

• The Guardian (U.K.) selects its "Noughtyisms," a year-by-year list of the decade's best words. They place cougar in 2005; I had it on my 2009 list. Hat tip: Sherry Noik.

• Separated by a Common Language announces the best American-to-British and British-to-American imports of 2009.

• Minneapolis naming agency Pollywog picks its best and worst brand names of 2009. I disagree about Bing—I think it's a pretty good name—but I agree about the rest.

• This just in: The German word of the year is Abwrackprämie (literally: "wrecking premium"), the equivalent of "cash for clunkers." Runner-up: kriegsähnliche Zustände, or “war-like conditions,” used to describe the situation faced by German troops in Afghanistan.

And looking toward the new year:

• From Trendwatching, 10 consumer trends to watch in 2010, including "(F)luxury," "Maturialism," and "Urbany."

A couple of enjoyable time-wasters—uh, research opportunities:

• SlangSite, "a dictionary of slang, webspeak, made-up words, and colloquialisms." I'm partial to qiken (pronounced chicken), "used to describe chicken cooked in an Asian style." Hat tip:  Dick Margulis, author of an excellent blog on writing, publishing, editing, and web design.

• WordCount, a brilliant interactive display of the 86,000+ most commonly used words in (British) English. Hat tip: Descriptively Adequate.

In anticipation of Festivus, with its annual Airing of Grievances, here are a couple of grievances about relationships between designers and clients. Equally applicable to name developers and copywriters, to be sure. (I'll air more grievances on the actual holiday, Dec. 23.)

• Eight ways to kill an idea. Beautifully illustrated, painfully true. Hat tip: Catch This.

• How a web design goes straight to hell. With very few changes, could apply to writing and naming projects.

Finally, here's a bit of, uh, breaking naming news you may have missed: The Swedish Association for Sexuality Education has announced a new name for the hymen: vaginal corona. In Swedish: slidkrans. Thanks a million for that link, Wes Phillips.

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Image: Festivus ice cream, a seasonal flavor produced by Ben & Jerry's in the early 2000s, brought back by popular demand in 2006, and now retired.

To Verb, or Not to Verb?

"One thing we're sure about," my client told me, "is that we want our new name to be used as a verb." He and his team had already rejected several internally developed names because they weren't "verbable" enough.

I hear this request frequently. "We want our name to be used like Google, TiVo, or FedEx," a client will say. As in: You don't "perform a Google search"; you Google it. You don't "record a program on a TiVo DVR"; you TiVo it. And if you want your package to arrive overnight, you FedEx it.

To many clients, the ability to transform a corporate or product name into a verb is the definition of brand success. But is it really?

When clients insist on a verbable corporate or product name, I counter with a simple question: "What's the verb?"

In other words, what's the action you want your brand name to represent?

The answer isn't always obvious. My client, in fact, was stumped. His product has two major functions, each associated with a different verb. One "verbable" brand name wouldn't cover both actions. In fact, it would confuse customers.

Besides, verbability is a red herring. Hundreds of companies and businesses have succeeded without verbable brand names. You don't Gap your closet, Adobe a document, Tiffany your sweetheart, or Budweiser your refrigerator. In fact, of Interbrand's list of 100 top global brands, only three—Google, Xerox, and (maybe) BlackBerry—are commonly used as verbs.

In the end, my client admitted that the verbability requirement was unrealistic and unnecessary. We've agreed on more productive naming criteria.

My two cents: If it works, go for it. But to make verbability a non-negotiable demand is to impose a needless and often unsuitable limitation on your naming process.

Dear Client: That Name Sucks

Should you tell your client that the name he's chosen for his new company is so bad he shouldn't use it? How should you approach the subject?

These aren't hypothetical questions. I've faced this dilemma more than once in my own career, and it recently came up in a LinkedIn discussion group I belong to, where it generated an unprecedented amount of feedback. The person who posted the topic requested confidentiality, so I won't disclose any of the details except to say that I, like the majority of commenters, agreed that it was a very bad name indeed. (You will probably not be surprised when I tell you it was one of those Bad Portmanteaus, not unlike the ones I critiqued during Bad Brand Names Week. And you may not be surprised to learn that the name was the "brainchild" of the client's next of kin.)

So: names are withheld to protect the guilty. But I think it's fair and worthwhile to paraphrase the group members' most helpful advice.

Introducing Balance Point Divorce Funding

I'm pleased to announce the launch of Balance Point Divorce Funding, whose name and tagline were developed by my consulting business, Wordworking.

Balance Point Divorce Funding was created to change the way divorces are fought and resolved, especially when one partner has more financial resources than the other. (The threshold net worth for Balance Point clients is $2 million.) Early in the naming process, founder Stacey Napp described her company as "a general contractor for the divorce process—we make sure everything gets done on time and properly." The company provides funding for attorneys', forensic accountants', and investigators' fees as well as for living expenses.

We started the naming process by asking questions about the scope of the new business and the story it needed to tell. It was clear from the outset that certain words and concepts were off limits. Although Ms. Napp is a lawyer, it was important that neither the name nor the tagline suggest that Balance Point provides legal advice. Similarly, we had to steer clear of any connotation of "loans" or "banking." Also ruled out was the suggestion of "getting even" or "getting what's coming to you."

We also developed a list of desirable concepts. High on that list were wisdom, authority, support, solutions, clarity, and—above all—fairness.

From a master list of more than 200 names we selected 10 for presentation to the client, who whittled down the list to four for comprehensive trademark review. Balance Point emerged as the strongest contender: not only did it lack competitors in its trademark class, but it also evoked a clear, positive image. "Balance," of course, suggests fairness and equity as well as a bank balance; "point" conveys a point in time (which in turn conveys a sense of urgency), a decimal point (suggesting money), and point-by-point attention to detail. "Balance point" also communicates physical equilibrium. (It's a term frequently used in Pilates technique, for example.)

Once the name was selected and submitted to the U.S.P.T.O., I began work on the tagline. The eventual solution—Comprehensive Resources. Equitable Outcomes—supports the name and suggests the company's scope without being overliteral.

I also consulted on domain registration. Our first choice, BalancePoint.com, was taken (by a very enigmatic entity), but fortunately the client was open to other solutions. BalancePointFunding.com was both appropriate and available.

My teammate in the creative phase of name development was the prolific and savvy Mark Gunnion. Trademark lawyer Jessica Stone Levy did the trademark review and filing. Mark Landkamer of Landkamer Partners designed the logo and website, and Deb Doyle of Stage 2 Marketing provided marketing strategy and web content.

Read about some of my past naming projects: Abound Logic, Sauté Your Way, Amia, BrightScale, TRIA, and New Routes To Community Health.

Introducing Abound Logic

The web site has launched, so I can announce with pride Wordworking's recent renaming project: Abound Logic.

Formerly known as M2000, Abound Logic designs and manufactures field programmable gate arrays (FPGAs) used in consumer electronics, video,  telecommunications, cloud computing, and other applications. To understand the naming assignment, all you really need to know about these particular FPGAs is that they're denser (they have greater processing capacity), more flexible, and more energy-efficient than the competition.

You also need to know that this is a truly multinational company. The fact that it has offices in Santa Clara (Silicon Valley), California, and Bièvres, France, gives only a hint. At the final presentation, the client team members seated around the table in Santa Clara represented Iran, Turkey, Spain, France, and the United States; on a conference-call line were an Italian (in France) and a Polish-surnamed Frenchman (in Beijing). Out in the cubicles were speakers of Urdu, Hindi, and Mandarin.

Obviously, the new name needed to meet broad language criteria, offending no one while inspiring everyone.

But first things first. Why did the M2000 team feel compelled to change the corporate name? Because, primarily, it represented the past: the "M" stood for Metasystems, a predecessor company; 2000 was the year of the original launch. (All those millennial names that sounded so cool and futuristic in 1998 sound quaint today.) M2000 is also, literally, a cipher: it doesn't communicate a benefit. Furthermore, for a global company, the name had an undesirably ambiguous pronunciation: "Em two thousand" or (à la française) "Em deux mille"? Finally, as one member of the management team pointed out, "M2000 sounds like a part number, not a company."

After interviewing the management team and analyzing the competitive namespace, I developed 13 themes for name development: flexibility, speed, interconnectivity, and so on. The theme of density seemed to show particular promise. How best to communicate the benefit of density without sounding, well, heavy? We explored a range of metaphors (e.g., Sardine), word-blends (Bevydense), specialized terms from various scientific fields (Ceanothus, a dense shrub), and foreign words (Ezitu, from a Swahili word meaning density). The master name list included more than 300 unique names across all 13 themes.

From that long list, I recommended 12 names organized into four categories: speed/efficiency, density/productivity, pivotal/breakthrough, and "foreign terms that function as empty vessels." I presented them to the team one at a time, each with a detailed story and trademark notes, Abound—suggesting "plentiful, teeming," and "growing by leaps and bounds"—was an early favorite. After more than an hour of discussion, the team chose three names for comprehensive legal review. To everyone's satisfaction, Abound passed the vetting process. We added "Logic" to obtain the dot-com URL and to clarify the company's role in the programmable-logic market.¹

Many thanks to Mark Gunnion for naming support and to Jessica Stone Levy for trademark vetting. Jerry Gist of Gist & Erdmann designed the visual identity and website.

Read about some of my past naming projects: Sauté Your Way, Amia, BrightScale, TRIA, and New Routes To Community Health. By the way, although I created TRIA as a medical-device name, I'm pleased to report that TRIA Beauty recently became the corporate name as well, replacing SpectraGenics, Inc.

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¹ I strongly advise clients to be flexible on this point. The supposedly holy grail of a one-word URL is not all that sacred, in my opinion.