This week: need a new word? Just make one up. That's what all the ad-men do. We talk about it. Then we've got a single, sharable item from the greater world of science and language, and then, well, all the footnotes you could shake a stick at. Here we go.
English loves words. More than a lot of other languages, English collects words like my students collect Pokemon1. English likes to have plenty of options when it comes to synonyms and so it takes words from other languages, re-purposes old words, smashes words into each other to make a new one, and, on occasion, just makes them up2.
It's this last method of acquisition we're going to talk about this week. Stories about people adding new words to the language make for great cocktail chatter. So much so that many stories have passed into a kind of legend - we know about the Simpsons writers coining the word cromulent for their show and Lewis Carrol inventing chortle in the Jabberwocky.
But, comedy writers and literary geniuses alike come in a distant second compared to one single source of new English words: Maddison Avenue and the advertising industry3.
For the most part, these new words appear in ads selling a specific product and, honestly, most don't stick around all that long. For every "dependability" we get "thighvertising"4 and for every innovation like "blog" we get a disaster like "drinkcesorize." And, frankly, that's fine. That's advertising working like it's meant to. The writers create a new portmanteau or easily understood change in spelling or grammar which creates interest in the product and thus drives sales. Capitalism at its actual workable end.
But, where this gets interesting, to me, is when marketers get beyond merely describing the products and get down to actually naming the products. Because the names, unlike ad campaigns, need to last. If, in six months, no one remembers your ad tagline, it's no big deal. You make another ad with a new tagline and move on. But if in six months, no one remembers your product's name, you're in trouble. George Eastman famously went through several drafts and iterations before deciding on the name Kodak5, and Chevy infamously went through sales hell after naming their car the Nova in Spanish-speaking6 markets.
And, since it 'tis the season, I'm going to give a couple of examples of brand names that are just making it up and onto my family's Christmas lists: Squishable and Squishmallow. Both companies produce a range of soft, plush animal toys in a variety of sizes and colors7. And, obviously, both companies have based their brand name around the word "squish."
Just so we know exactly where we're starting, here's Merriam-Webster on squish:
a) squash
b) squelch
That's it. That's their entire definition. So, here's the one from Cambridge:
to crush something that is soft
And yet, neither of those is how I think of the word. To me, squash and squelch are negative sounding. I think of crushing and destructions, of being stuck and mud. But squish? Squish means to hug. You squish your kid or your kitten or your pillows or your...soft, plush animal toys in a variety of sizes and colors.
Now, squish is an old word. Etymology Online tells us that it's from the mid-1500s and probably originated as a variant of "squash." Fair enough. But what's interesting here, is that the two companies we're talking about have capitalized on a subtle change in the meaning of the word squish. When and how did this change come about? I don't know. But I'll be there are lexicographers hard at work figuring it out because...well, here's an experiment for you: Go to a clean version of Google, i.e. one that you're not logged into, and run an image search for "squish." If your results are anything like mine, the first three pages of results are plush toys, fun slimes and gel toys, and kittens and puppies. No mud, no crushing. Interesting.
But, just to close things out, let's take a closer look at just what the brands are doing with their iterations of squish - Squishable has created a new adjective. Seriously, I checked six dictionaries for this and none of them had the word squishable in it. But you knew what it meant the second you saw the word, right? So the Squishable company took this old word, added a suffix, and there you go, new word.
Squishmallow, on the other hand, went for the tried-and-tested portmanteau8 by combining, squish and...mallow? Now, mallow, by itself means a species of herb. But most of us don't think of those when we hear the word mallow, do we? No, we go straight for the gooey, squishy goodness of marshmallows. Perfect match.
Ok. So, I'm getting a little snarky and laughing too much at my own jokes, so it's time to wrap this up. My point with all of this is that we see new words all the time. Every new product, every new ad campaign is filled with them. But words also carry more meanings than we're always aware of. New forms of old words and portmanteaus create subconscious connections in our minds and that's something worth thinking about as we head into the rush of the shopping season.
Stay curious,
J
Linguistically Yours:
One of my favorite authors, Cory Doctorow, shared this round-up of real, honest-to-Bob research papers with the most glorious of puns in their titles. My favorite: An-arrgh-chy: The Law and Economics of Pirate Organization.
For the uninitiated, you lucky bastards, that's a lot. Like a lot a lot.
This is English's greatest strength as an international language. It is also what makes English such a pain in the ass to learn and why no one can claim to know every word in the language; the actual number of words in English is hard to determine. It boils down to what counts as a word. That said, Grammarly says I have a wider vocabulary in my writing than 98% of other users, so, uh, I've got that going for me?
I'm saving this for when I form my Counting Crows thrash-metal cover band.
Not making it up, but I'll admit that my source on this is a little second-tier.
According to legend, Eastman took the word "Kodiak" and played with it until he got something new that still bore a strong phonetic resemblance to the original. His hope was that people would hear the similarity and associate his cameras with the outdoors, camping, and so on.
According to legend, Chevy couldn't understand why their cars weren't selling in Latin America until a Spanish speaker pointed out that "nova" could be read as "no va" in Spanish, meaning "no go."
And all are equally adorable. I'm putting links to both sites in this article, but they are not affiliate links. So, if you go shopping, it ain't my fault and I get no money from them, I just really dig their products.
Spludging two words into each other to make a new one. Like "newsletter."