Odds & Ends: November 22, 2024
1 day ago
Wednesday, November 19, 2008
My fascination with words, language, and how they are used was developed at a fairly young age. At 8 years old, I remember being nestled up under the covers with a flashlight, reading the Voyages of Hercules in one hand and a dictionary in the other, so I could fully comprehend what I just read. There were many nights that I would just look through the dictionary, pick a page and read definitions of words I never heard. A bit nerdy, uh?.
Even now Mrs. Padrone and I battle it out with our knowledge of words (I will give it to her, she is quite the wordsmith). We have been known to enjoy a good round of scrabble (she has only won twice). And we both tend to toss our lexicon with reckless abandon and affectations rarely used in our normal discourse, especially if we are in a friendly "debate". I once lost $10 to her because I wasn't familiar with "peccadillo". We chave an ongoing battle battle over the proper use of "prescribe" and "subscribe"(look it up, they're interchangeable), and she has been known to use the wrong word (or make up one) if I rush her to make a point. It's kind of cute.
My logophilism extends beyond the excepted connotation of words as defined by scholars, and Webster. Being a child of hip hop, I can't help but to marvel at, and appreciate, how we have systematically changed, chopped, remixed, redefined, and rewritten our language - which in truth reflects our culture on many levels. One I recently heard on the radio is, "Gov'mint":
Goverment or Goverment Name, pronounced: "Gov'mint": someone's actual name recognized by the government, and on official ID. kept secret by most thugs who use their alias, street, hood, nick - name. Ex: "Yo, son - don't be using my government name up in here."  via: UrbanDictionary.com | ||
And No... I would never support the use of Ebonics at any institution of education, because it promotes mediocrity of thought and socio-economic status. Also, as any musician, writer, athlete, artist or scholar knows, "In order become great at your craft, you must first master the fundamentals." Then you break all of the rules you have mastered to create something new, like the late great, Miles Davis.
I digress form my main topic only to demonstrate that I truly appreciate words, their meanings, their ability to convey images and provoke thought. But it seems Web 2.0's startup companies have neglected to master the fundamentals. Myspace and Facebook are obvious... it's "my space" and a book that shows faces, respectively. But do the following names NOT sound like gibberish, gobbledygook, and baby babble:
Smule, Xnobi, Ocarina, Bajca, Boxee,Jinni, Fring, Infoaxe, Plista, Zenbe, Zoozbeat, Twingr, Zynga, Happenr, Judaka
I understand that the competition and cost for domain names occasionally make it more feasible to come up with something original and cool sounding rather than pay huge fees for a moniker some one else has already "copped". I also get that Twitter "tweets" what you are going to be doing at 3pm to all your friends. And it's not a far jump from the twitching one experiences from "Crackberry" withdrawal... or waiting for that next important call, text, or email (ahem Mrs. P). But these company names are an assault on (and insult to) the English language. Not to mention, the branding nightmare most of them must create.
Obviously, I am not a marketing genius. But isn't it common sense to have a name that conjures up an image somewhee in the realm of what your company does, produces, or at least mentions the names of the people that own the company? The names above conjure images of various items that have nothing to do with: Snacks (Twingr), Lord of The Rings character(Bajca), Diseases (Plista... yuck!) - or quite frankly just some made up bullshit. No offense to the companies, I am sure they do, whatever they do, very well. It's worth noting too, that most of the companies aforementioned were taken from the past weeks posts over at Techcrunch.com... and they all were getting enormous amounts of money (re: millions!) to do... what they do. Maybe I should come up with a silly gibberish name and pitch it to raise millions in capital to fund another social network or app that we don't really need. Better yet maybe I should just start buying up any words I hear toddlers speak and sell the domain's to the highest bidder. Unfortunately, I may have already been beat to the punch.
Look, I enjoy words whether they're used counter-culturally, connotatively, contemplatively, or counter-intuitively... their use is relevant depending on how, when, and by whom they are used. But this trend of silly sounding names for social networks and apps really must cease. It's not cute, funny, or clever. Just like the recent trend in television commercials that don't show the product they're advertising, but splash the brand name at the end of it so that we know a name (in most case we still have no clue what they are selling), it's utter nonsense...but that's a topic for another post!
Obviously, I am not a marketing genius. But isn't it common sense to have a name that conjures up an image somewhee in the realm of what your company does, produces, or at least mentions the names of the people that own the company? The names above conjure images of various items that have nothing to do with: Snacks (Twingr), Lord of The Rings character(Bajca), Diseases (Plista... yuck!) - or quite frankly just some made up bullshit. No offense to the companies, I am sure they do, whatever they do, very well. It's worth noting too, that most of the companies aforementioned were taken from the past weeks posts over at Techcrunch.com... and they all were getting enormous amounts of money (re: millions!) to do... what they do. Maybe I should come up with a silly gibberish name and pitch it to raise millions in capital to fund another social network or app that we don't really need. Better yet maybe I should just start buying up any words I hear toddlers speak and sell the domain's to the highest bidder. Unfortunately, I may have already been beat to the punch.
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