Trademarks Lexis and Lexus (was nexis is baffling)

[James Harbeck]

>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.

To be fair to Qantas, their name comes from Queensland And Northern
Territory Aerial Services -- hence the lack of a u in the spelling.
(They no longer render the name in all caps, so it's not QANTAS. I
wish drug manufacturers would follow their lead -- gad, how I hate
how often they insist on putting their brand name in ALL CAPS in
their various literature. Oops, sorry for the digression.)

I remember about a decade ago the cell phone to have (for a month or
so) was a the Q-phone. But it's true that X and Z seem much more
popular among the branding and marketing set. I wonder whether
there's an aesthetic element as well -- straight lines and sharp
angles versus an ovoid with a tail.

Ciao,
James Harbeck.

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