Neologisms successfully spread by marketers

[Michael H Covarrubias]

James

What qualities would appropriately distinguish neologisms from eponyms? I can't
think of many/any adjectives like your example "metronatural."

Of course there are those Taco Bell commercials that are suggesting idiotic
words like "crunchweesy."  I think of cruncherific...from...some crunchy
product.  Yeah...I'm guessing that word and others like "nutrageous" aren't
going to last.

Of course eponyms are easy to find and fun to list. frisbee kleenex xerox muzak
jacuzzi band-aid...

My favourite is escalator.  Nobody can even think of another word other than the
brand name for moving stairs.  That's pretty successful.

Michael Covarrubias


-----------------------------------------
Quoting James callan <james.callan at COMCAST.NET>:

> Seattle (my hometown!) just spent $200,000 to come up with the word
> "metronatural" as a tourist slogan. If early blogosphere reaction is
> any guide, this word will be hooted into oblivion within weeks.
>
> However, it started me wondering: are there examples of words coined
> by marketers that successfully entered the language?
>
> The only one that leapt to mind was Volkswagen's early '90s entry:
> Fahrvergnugen, the faux-German word that means "love of driving" or
> somesuch. Googling Fahrfergnugen -volkswagen -vw comes up with 19,000
> hits, a respectable number, though many of those are usernames.
>
> Have marketers ever had much more success with neologisms than that?
>
> James Callan
> http://www.neologasm.com
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------

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   Michael H. Covarrubias
   Department of English
   Purdue University

   215 Heavilon Hall
   500 Oval Dr
   W Lafayette, IN 47907
   Office: 765-494-3721

   mcovarru at purdue.edu

   web.ics.purdue.edu/~mcovarru
   wishydig.blogspot.com

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