It's high season for X-of-the-year lists, especially words of the year. I'll leave it to my fellow language observers to decide whether volatility, occupy, squeezed middle, tergiversate, or some other word best sums up the year's prevailing mood. For my part, I'm focusing on a different corner of the linguaverse: brand names of the year.  Continue reading...

In this year's World Series, one name in particular will likely catch the eye of even casual baseball fans. In the late innings of the first two games, a relief pitcher for the St. Louis Cardinals came in to face the Texas Rangers: Marc Rzepczynski. The announcers were clearly ready for Rzepczynski's appearance and pronounced his name smoothly (as "zep-CHIN-ski"), helpfully explaining that his nickname is "Scrabble." So how does Rzepczynski stack up against other hard-to-spell baseball names?  Continue reading...

What's for dinner tonight? How about Cheez-It crackers topped with Cheez Whiz, followed by a salad of Imitation Krab and Vegetable Skallops sprinkled with Bac'n Bites? For your main course, we have a tempting selection of Chik'n Cutlets, Chick'n Scallopini, Turk'y, Stakelets, and Wyngz. And be sure to leave room for dessert: we're serving Kandy Kakes and Froots smoothies!  Continue reading...

Earlier this week, we featured an excerpt from Microstyle: The Art of Writing Little by Christopher Johnson, a branding expert who runs the website The Name Inspector. Here we continue Johnson's discussion of how "the crowded space of names might create a need for more complex ways to create names."  Continue reading...

Here's a little quiz to test your knowledge of color names. Can you identify where on the spectrum these colors — all of them well documented, some of them brand-specific — are located? 1. Inch Worm, 2. Dead Spaniard, 3. Isabella, 4. I'm Not Really a Waitress, 5. Synergy.  Continue reading...

What's not to like about a big, roomy vehicle that can carry the kids, the dog, the groceries, and a team's worth of soccer equipment? Plenty not to like, as it turns out — if you call that vehicle a minivan, a word that's become burdened by associations with boring family life in the suburbs.  Continue reading...