A blanket merchant in the Pacific Northwest is doing laudable work under a mournful moniker.
The company commissions and sells handmade blankets in a variety of materials and designs. For every blanket you purchase, the company donates a blanket to your local homeless shelter.
The name of the company: Sackcloth & Ashes.
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I usually can come up with a theory to explain copycat names and naming trends. In the early aughts, many companies chose double-O names (Qoop, Squidoo, Doostang, ooVoo) to sound like Google. All those X + Y names (Mizzen + Main, Standard & Strange, Coral & Tusk)? They evoke Ye Olde Tymes, with the modern bonus of yielding cheap domains. Lately, we’ve seen a cluster of first-name names like Oscar and Emma, the better to blunt the cutting edge of technology.
But the explanation for one mini-trend has eluded me. Perhaps you, dear readers, can help.
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In an election season marked by one presidential candidate’s freewheeling use of naughty language, some observers have professed to be shocked, shocked that swearing is taking place in these hallowed halls. Well, readers of this blog and of my occasional posts at Strong Language are inured to shock: you know that swears and near-swears have been ubiquitous in the language of commerce for many years now. Here are three recent examples:
Continue reading "Nearly sweary ads: the nearly Spring edition" »
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There’s a curious little kerfuffle going on between two businesswomen whose flower-shaped logos are suspiciously similar in shape and embellishment. What makes it especially newsworthy is that one of the businesswomen is the actress Reese Witherspoon, and she’s the one being sued.
But that’s not the only thing I find interesting about Ms. Witherspoon’s retail venture, which is called Draper James, after the actress’s grandmother (Dorothea Draper) and grandfather (William James Witherspoon). For me, that name – no matter how sweetly familial – is all too reminiscent of another, much older retail chain, Draper’s & Damon’s.
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Into the final weeks of 2015 with one final link roundup!
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Lucy Kellaway, who writes about language and writing for the Financial Times, has created Guffipedia, “a repository for the worst jargon I’ve seen over the years.” All the devils are here: onboard more resource, flex-pon-sive, diverse hairdos, etc. ad nauseam. “The point of Guffipedia,” writes Kellaway, “is not just for you to admire the extent of my guff collection, but to help me curate it going forward, as they say in Guffish.” Good point of entry: the many Guffish euphemisms for you’re fired. (Hat tip: Molly Walker.)
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’Tis-the-Season season came early this year! Why, ’twasn’t even Halloween when Saks Fifth Avenue gave us “’tis the treating hour” in a New York Times ad .
Page A5, October 29.
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In the Bay Area—and maybe where you live, too—“hella” is hella ubiquitous. I’ve spotted it three times recently in some unexpected contexts.
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Fritinancy Fashion Week wraps up on a reverent note, honoring a quartet of brands with “Saint” in their names.
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The Seattle boutique Totokaelo – which since 2003 has championed avant-garde Japanese and European fashion in a city better known for flannel and anoraks – recently opened a five-story, 8,400-square-foot outpost in New York’s SoHo neighborhood. “Totokaelo” may appear to be borrowed from the Chinook language, but in fact it’s a corruption of Latin words that translate to “the sky’s the limit,” a motto that applies to many of the prices. The New York Times says the name is pronounced TOH-toh-KYE-yo,
Issey Miyake dress from Totokaelo.
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Fritinancy Fashion Week continues with the story of a venerable retailer, a mysterious ad, and a clever tagline/hashtag.
The September 2015 issue of American Vogue contains 832 pages, and on only two of those pages do we see women who aren’t whippet-thin. The women on those two pages are photographed in silhouette against a gray background, and although the spread appears to be an ad, no brand is identified – there’s only a date (9.14.15), an enigmatic hashtag (#PlusIsEqual) and web URL (plusisequal.com), and “It’s time for change. Be part of it.”
It’s about time. (And what a perfect day for this.) #WomensEqualityDay#PlusIsEqualpic.twitter.com/EpLIYTc1VS
— Lane Bryant (@lanebryant) August 26, 2015
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