Neologisms successfully spread by marketers

[Laurence Horn]

At 11:54 PM -0400 10/20/06, Michael H Covarrubias wrote:
>James
>
>What qualities would appropriately distinguish neologisms from eponyms?

The latter are necessarily from proper names (personal names, trade
names, etc.), and they're necessarily new.  The former aren't.
"Sandwich" and "sideburns" are eponyms but not neologisms (although
they were once).  "Metrosexual" and "truthiness" are neologisms but
not eponyms.

LH

>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
>>
>>  ------------------------------------------------------------
>
>~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>
>    Michael H. Covarrubias
>    Department of English
>    Purdue University
>
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>
>    mcovarru at purdue.edu
>
>    web.ics.purdue.edu/~mcovarru
>    wishydig.blogspot.com
>
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The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org