Trademarks Lexis and Lexus (was nexis is baffling)

[Laurence Horn]

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.

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