My latest story for Medium explores the potential and limitations of artificial-intelligence tools like ChatGPT to create names and taglines. I gave a few of these tools a spin; read the story to find out my verdict: Can you use ChatGPT to create brand names?
If you hit a paywall, try this friend link.
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Happy Lunar New Year! It’s the Year of the Rabbit, so I’m digging deep into the archives to bring you a bunny-related* word I originally wrote about 15 years ago.
Watership Down, by Richard Adams (1972)
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For a couple of years I’ve been participating in a food-testing program in which I receive free, full-size “better-for-you” products in exchange for posting online reviews. Some of the products are hits: loved the Haven’s Kitchen sauces and the Cleveland Kitchen kosher dill pickles! (“Kitchen” shows up a lot in these names, possibly to evoke quaint kettles simmering on a bustling homemaker’s stove.) Others are misses: The less said about those packaged “soft-baked” cookies, and those parmesan crisps with the unpleasant aftertaste, the better.
Last week I trotted over to Whole Foods to redeem a coupon for a product from yet another kitchen: Primal Kitchen Buffalo Mayo with avocado oil.
This 17-ounce squeeze bottle was free with my coupon. Regular price: about $15. Hear my primal scream.
After I’d sampled it on some steamed broccoli—probably not the typical Buffalo Mayo use case, but I was working with what I had on hand—I dutifully went to the website to post my review. Everything was going fine until I reached this question:
“How was the flavor? ☐ Good balance of Buffalo and Mayo ☐ Too spicy ☐ Not spicy enough”
So, a couple of things here.
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The other morning, as I was spreading Vegemite on my toast like scores* of my fellow Americans, I took a closer look at the label and made a happy discovery: This year marks the centennial (or centenary**) of Vegemite yeast extract, as much an Australian national symbol as koalas and kangaroos. It’s a milestone that will be cheered by many of us and strenuously ignored by others.
“Proudly made in Australia since 1923”
To call Vegemite—a thick black paste made from brewer’s yeast—controversial is to put it mildly, and “mild” is a word you can never use with Vegemite. I happen to love the stuff, because I love anything that combines salty and umami flavors, but here in North America I find myself in a lonely minority. And it’s not just North Americans: Vegemite is one of three foods that represent Australia in the Disgusting Food Museum in Malmö, Sweden. (The others are wichetty grubs, which are insects; and musk sticks, which are a kind of perfume-y candy and are unassociated with the current owner of Twitter and other businesses.)
My photo of a jar of Vegemite at the pop-up Disgusting Food Museum in Los Angeles, January 2019. The last sentence on the card reads: “In 2011, President Obama angered Australians by saying that he found vegemite [sic] to be ‘horrible.” When Australian prime minister Julia Gillard described the product, Obama said, “So, it's like a quasi-vegetable by-product paste that you smear on your toast for breakfast – sounds good, doesn’t it?” Yes, Mr. Obama, it sounds good. And it’s good for you, too.
A little background to whet your appetite:
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My new story for Medium takes a deeper look at words of the year (WotYs): how, why, and by whom they’re chosen. I also investigate the peculiar institution known as Banished Words, a (mostly) tongue-in-cheek tradition, or PR stunt, at Lake Superior State University, in Michigan.
Read Words of the Year, In and Out. And remember that if you like a story you can “clap” for it— up to 50 times per story! And if you really want to support my writing, you can join Medium and subscribe to my feed there.
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