Trademarks Lexis and Lexus (was nexis is baffling)

[Paul Johnson]

there's always quixotic quality

Laurence Horn wrote:

> At 5:13 AM -0700 4/9/07, Jonathan Lighter wrote:
>
>> It is popularly believed in the ad and marketing industries that X
>> is the most interesting and enticing letter you can use (I never
>> spell "sex" without it.)  Contrariwise, Q is the least appealing.
>>
>>   So always try to use an X and avoid a Q. If you can suggest some
>> appealing word with it, like "sex" or luxury" (but definitely not
>> "tax" or "Xerxes"
>
>
> Or "X-ray"
>
>> ), so much the better.
>>
> I haven't seen anyone opine in that manner on "Q".  The early papers
> by linguists on trade names --one classic is
> Pound, Louise (1913). Word-coinage and modern trade names. Dialect
> Notes 4: 29-41.
> --tend to focus on the appeal of x's and k's (Kodak, kotex, xerox,
> etc.)*, but don't mention Q one way or the other.  I'd assume from
> Compaq and Qantas going out of their way to include them that they
> can't be universally held in disrepute.  And they do give you all
> those extra points in Scrabble, after all.
>
> LH
>
> *see also Henry Bellaman ("Robots of Language", Yale Review, 19
> (1929): 212-14) on the "verbal fabrications" that "take up the
> atrocious burden of contemporary advertising". Along with slang--"a
> product carelessly spawned by tongues of loose morals"--these
> "monsters" and "clacking robot words" threaten an invasion of the
> lexicon snatchers, "framed in the buzz of "z's" and the rattle of
> "x's".  Nary a q in sight, for good or ill.
>
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>
>

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The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org