Pro-fil-ac-tic

[Duane Campbell]

When I was a lad in the 1950s, I worked in a drug store as a stock boy,
floor cleaner, soda jerk. On the counter of the prescription area,
directly next to the cash register, was a wooden display case for combs.
It had a glass front displaying maybe a dozen models. The customer would
select the model he wanted and the pharmacist would remove a comb from
the stock in the back of this small cabinet.

Across the top of this cabinet was the brand name of the combs --
Pro-fil-ac-tic, with the syllables and dashes in place.  I always figured
it was an aide memoire for customers who had a more colorful name for
these devices which, at that time, could be sold only to prevent disease,
not just to have fun. They could read off the comb case and not run afoul
of the law or 50s sensibilities.

Tonight, watching a program on the History Channel on bathroom technology
(I don't have much of a life), they showed an early nylon toothbrush from
the 1930s. On the box it had the same pro-fil-ac-tic spelled out, not as
a brand name, but in smaller print as an attribute.

Was I wrong about the insidious intent of the comb case? Or was this
syllabic spelling a convention of some sort and for some other purpose?
D

I am Duane Campbell and I approve this message