Fritinancy

One ad line to rule them all

Is there a bar or a club where tech copywriters huddle to collude on slogans and ad lines? The CopyCat Lounge, maybe? Because I keep seeing double with outdoor ads, and it can’t be a coincidence.

One X at a time, again

Groundhog Day seems like an appropriate occasion to talk about “One X at a time,” the sloganclone that, like Punxsutawney Phil, keeps popping up. Year after year I point with alarm. And yet the formula thrives, in sunshine and shadow, in winter, spring, summer, and fall. I feel like such a failure.

If I had to identify the source of all this at-a-timing, I might single out “One Day at a Time,” the Norman Lear sitcom that enjoyed a robust run on network TV (1975–1984) and which last year was revived, with substantial changes – chief among them a Cuban-American family at the center of the action – for Netflix. The second season arrived last week, and a third-season renewal was announced on January 30.

 

February linkfest

Why do so many robot names sound alike? FastCoDesign put the question to name developer Christopher Johnson, who explained that Kuri, Yui, Yobi, et al. “sound like the kind of names you might give your dog.” 

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Speaking of machines and names, Amazon’s Alexa is making life miserable for a lot of people named Alexis, Alex, and Alexa.

 

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Some good advice from Nielsen Norman Group, the user-experience people, on writing headlines, page titles, subject lines, and other “microcontent.”

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PROFANITY BREAK!

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Is shitgibbon the simian epithet of the year? After Daylin Leach, a Pennsylvania state senator, used the word in a tweet aimed at @realDonaldTrump, Ben Zimmer did some scholarly analysis for Strong Language, the sweary blog about swearing; and for Slate’s Browbeat blog.

 

 

Then the MetaFilter crowd weighed in. (Sample: “No mention of the shitgibbon’s closest primate relative, the poontangutan?”)

Linguist Gretchen McCulloch considered “the origin and constraints of shitgibbon compounds.” (She thinks douchebaboon “would actually work just fine,” but shitbaboon and shitcanoe “are both pretty bad.”)

 

 

Geoff Nunberg – you may know him as linguist Geoff Nunberg from NPR’s “Fresh Air” – waxed poetic.

@bgzimmer @stronglang @browbeat Or to summarize the story as a double dactyl: pic.twitter.com/6im5FrMcEe

— Geoffrey Nunberg (@GeoffNunberg) February 12, 2017

And The Forward’s language columnist, Aviya Kushner, surveyed the whole megillah, observing parenthetically: “Many of us, even if we aren’t senators or linguists, can use a little bit of fun right now, and why not turn to insult-making as stress relief?”

Finally, we bid adieu to the zoo and consider the shit show. Or is it shitshow?

"Shit show" and "shitshow" are neck and neck in our data, and also in the world in general. https://t.co/nFAEvStqG1

— Kory Stamper (@KoryStamper) January 30, 2017

 

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END OF PROFANITY BREAK.

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How do new drugs get those strange-sounding names? (See also my post from last September about the psoriasis drug Taltz.)

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Where does new slang comes from?

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Australia has some pretty awesome ads about dying, I'll give it that pic.twitter.com/ib2aAmOmbK

— Matt Novak (@paleofuture) February 15, 2017

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The surprising history of snowflake as a political insult. 

 

I love this. Such a sublime failure of understanding how the 'putting the X into Y' headline fórmula works. pic.twitter.com/LU2cwXkwxb

— Nick Parker (@nickparker) February 10, 2017

 

Ben Yagoda has been seeing a lot of better in advertisements, and he doesn’t feel good about it.

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There’s better, there’s worse, and then there’s Thee Worst.

“Thee Worst” is Dutch for “tea sausage.” Hat tip: @AbsP.

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“Now that a sneering, orange man-child is sinking his tiny fingers into every aspect of American life, [branding] experts believe activism will become nearly as ubiquitous in the brand world as it is on college campuses.” Let’s see what they have to say.

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HOW ALL CAPS CAME TO SIGNIFY SHOUTING.

 

 

One X at a Time: One More Time

What is it about this particular sloganclone that accounts for its abiding popularity? I have a theory, which I divulge further down. But first, five fresh examples.

Ads in the Wild: Reuters, T-Mobile, Go90

Three outdoor ads, all for mobile services, all spotted in San Francisco over the last week – and each one employing a trendy linguistic device.

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Name in the News: Lava Mae

It’s hard to stay clean when you’re sleeping on the streets. A new San Francisco nonprofit, Lava Mae, has an ingenious remedy: transforming old Muni buses into mobile bathrooms, complete with stall showers and toilets, that travel to neighborhoods with the greatest need.

Lave Mae and its founder, former public-relations executive Doniece Sandoval, were featured in the San Francisco Chronicle earlier this week on the occasion of the unveiling of Bus No. 2. Sandoval’s plans include expansion throughout California.

“Delivering dignity, one shower at a time.” For more on the “One X at a Time” sloganclone, see this 2012 post (and follow the links for more).

According to the Chronicle story:

Lava Mae’s simple solution of providing homeless people with showers and toilets has captured the attention of people around the world, many of whom have asked Sandoval to help them create a similar program.

To deal with the huge interest, Sandoval is working with the International Centre for Social Franchising, which is based in London but also has an office in San Francisco. It seeks to help organizations with a social benefit replicate their work in other places around the world. 

Sandoval has decided to focus on serving 30,000 homeless people around California by 2020 — and recently met with state Sen. Holly Mitchell of Los Angeles to discuss a Lava Mae-type program there.

There’s a feel-good story behind the Lava Mae name, too. Here’s how the organization’s website tells it (verbatim):

In Spanish, “lavame” means “wash me”

In our culture, we refer to vehicles in the feminine as in, “She’s a beauty, isn’t she?”

In the South, (where our founder grew up), it’s not uncommon for people to have two first names e.g Billy Bob, Peggy Sue. Putting it all together gave birth to the name Lava Mae

Via Ken Garff Auto Group.

 

OK, the copy needs some, um, cleaning up. If you want to be picky about it – hey, it’s in my job description! – it’s “lávame,” with an acute accent to mark the stress on the first syllable. And I cringed a little at the bio that reads “Brett is the principle and founder of StudioTerpeluk.”

I’ll stop quibbling now and instead reaffirm that I like the Lava Mae name: it’s friendly, personal, down-home, clever, and bilingual. (The echoes of Fannie Mae and Sallie Mae, which also aim to help people in need, may be intentional.) And I applaud the work Lava Mae is doing. In a region dominated by whiz-kid techpreneurs whose idea of “making the world a better place” is selling an app that does stuff your mom used to do for you, this is a truly creative and, yes, disruptive initiative.

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Related: Pee wall.

HBO’s “Silicon Valley” Gets into Naming Trouble

The trouble isn’t the unimaginative name of HBO’s new comedy series, which the pay-cable network has just renewed for a second season, just three episodes into Season 1. Rather, I’m talking about the major plot point of Episode 3, “Articles of Incorporation,” which aired Sunday night.

The business and tech bloggers who covered the episode found nothing amiss in the story. But to anyone who knows how business names work, it betrays the naïveté of the show’s creators.

The protagonist of “Silicon Valley” is a programmer, Richard, who’s inadvertently developed a file-compression algorithm. For reasons that haven’t yet been explained (and may never be), he named the algorithm—and the start-up he creates around it—“Pied Piper.”

Everyone but Richard hates the name. But that’s not his biggest headache.

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.

"X Just Got Y"

A familiar trope (or snowclone) in new manifestations.

 

“Disneyland Just got Merrier.” (Billboard in Oakland, California.)

 

 

“Comfort Just Got Sleek.” Jockey print ad featuring stylist Rachel Zoe (the blonde woman). Other slogans in the campaign: “Comfort Just Got Flirty,” “Comfort Just Got Glam.”

 

“Winning Just Got Closer.” One of the teaser slogans for the new Graton Resort & Casino, which opened in Rohnert Park (Sonoma County, California) November 5. Never underestimate the public’s willingness to overestimate the odds: Opening-day traffic created gridlock on US 101, and “once on city streets, many motorists ditched their cars at hotels and business parks to make their way on foot, plodding across a large field toward the hulking casino like ‘zombies’,” according to a California Highway Patrol officer quoted in a Los Angeles Times report. The doors were so mobbed that the casino opened an hour ahead of schedule. The 340,000-square-foot resort is owned by the Federated Indians of Graton Rancheria and is open 24/7.

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More “X Just Got Y” posts: Insomnia Just Got Better, Junk Food Just Got Nervous, Tough Just Got Better.

This Is Not Your Mother’s Slogan

Back in April I wrote about a popular slogan formula, or sloganclone: “Not Your Close Relative’s X.” The earliest example I knew of—the slogan that launched the trend, or so I thought—was “This Is Not Your Father’s Oldsmobile,” which the car company introduced in 1988.

But I recently learned of a much earlier example—perhaps the ur-text for this formula.

“It’s Not Your Mother’s Love Story!…” (1969). Image via DVDTalk.

 

I came across it in Gods Like Us: On Movie Stardom and Modern Fame (2012), by the Boston Globe’s film critic, Ty Burr. The tagline appeared in ads for John & Mary, a 1969 release starring Dustin Hoffman and Mia Farrow; it was a “diffident, diffuse” movie, according to Burr, that “sank without a trace.” (Hoffman also starred that year in Midnight Cowboy, which won Best Picture and brought Hoffman his second Oscar nomination.) The John & Mary story was “calculated to appeal to youth audiences,” Burr writes:

[A] couple meet at a bar, sleep together, then get to know each other. (“It’s not your mother’s love story,” nudged the ads in 1969; these days the same story is called Knocked Up and it’s a comedy.)

That’s 19 years before the Olds slogan! Can anyone document an earlier commercial example of “Not Your Close Relative’s X”?