Your Name Makes You Intelligent
This post originally appeared at Catch This. I’m a big fan of Richard Wiseman’s Quirkology site – it’s all about psychology and perception and why human beings are so weird. …
Names, gender, and the not-so-subtle message
This post originally appeared at Catch This. There is yet another article on baby naming called “What’s in a Name?“, by Sam Kean, at the NY Times this week (get …
Latin, Italian, whatever
Somehow I missed the news in July that Dell introduced another new brand name for its computers – Vostro. This line of computers is aimed at “the smallest businesses”, which …
Hulu: I don’t think that word means what you think it means
News Corp. and NBC recently announced the name of their new online video joint venture: Hulu. Here’s the rationale behind this brand name, according to Jason Kilar, the CEO: Why …
Buzzword of the Day
spit: First there was spam. Then spim (spam by instant messenger). Now get ready for spit (Spam Over Internet Telephony). It may not be a problem yet, but two companies …
Book Review: Wordcraft
Wordcraft: The Art of Turning Little Words Into Big Business By Alex Frankel Published by Crown Publishing Group 241 pages, $24.00 ISBN 1400051045 Very few books have been written exclusively …
Book Review: Eats, Shoots & Leaves
Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation By Lynne Truss Published by Gotham Books 240 pages; $17.50 ISBN: 1592400876 I’ve been wanting a copy of this book …
No More Names?: New York Times on Naming
This post originally appeared at Catch This. “‘Names are perhaps the single-most important issue of corporate communication today,’ said Naseem Javed, founder of a corporate naming company called ABC Namebank …
Diot Coke: A Refreshingly Old Name
This post originally appeared at Catch This. Yorkshire Couple Named Baby Diot Coke – in 1379 “Naming your child after a popular soft drink could be seen as a little …
Street Names
This post originally appeared at Catch This. How to name streets: “The ground rules of the name game are deceptively simple: The home-buyer must be able to spell and pronounce …