rebranding

[Jonathan Lighter]

Instead of "primarily," I meant to say "ideally," but that's life on the
fly.

People *wanted* their politicians to be dedicated public servants. Now they
want them to be fun 'n' exciting. Or to look that way on TV.

Semantic note: don't mistake "rebranding" for "flipflopping."  There's
obviously no connection whatsoever.

JL

On Wed, Jun 1, 2011 at 8:36 PM, Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at yale.edu>wrote:

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> -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU>
> Subject:      Re: rebranding
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> At 5:50 PM -0400 6/1/11, victor steinbok wrote:
> >The OED only has the plain meaning that is rather equivalent to the
> earlier
> >ranchers' use:
> >
> >Marketing. The application of a new brand identity to an existing product
> or
> >>  service. Also in extended use.
> >
> >
> >
> >This is a bit heavy-handed. There is a variation of "rebranding" that
> >implies more than mere change of label. It's the change of identity of a
> >/company/ in the wake of adverse publicity. The classics:
> >
> >Archer Daniels Midland --> ADM (following several scandals of chemicals in
> >food)
> >Kentucky Fried Chicken --> KFC (to avoid the reference to "fried" food)
>
> Some of these abbreviations, like the above couple, overlap with the
> more general practice of euphemistic distancing by initialism
> extending to the rebranding of non-brands, as in V.D. and STD/STI
> (discussed here recently), along with E.D., P.E. (not the gym kind),
> and now in commercials Low T.  I like to think of these as plain
> brown wrapper initialisms.
>
> LH
>
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