The Name Game

Years ago, the first time I went freelance, I thought it might be fun to call my business iCopy. It said copywriter, it was military slang for "I get it" and making it one word with a lower case "i" seemed really cool. So cool that before I could get around to ordering business cards, Macintosh beat me to it and launched the iMac. I was disappointed, but I took it as a sign that iDontsuck.

This has happened to me more than once, and if you are a half-way decent copywriter, it will happen to you. That cool TV spot, great headline, or indelible tag your client rejected pops up in the mind of some other copywriter, somewhere. Their version gets produced, and all you can do is stew in your own bile – especially since that other person's take is usually lame compared to what you had in mind. But if you want to experience the Deja Thought Of phenomenon at it's worst, try naming something.

When I first got on the Internet a million years ago, I thought I could be curly@aol.com. No, I could not. I could be curly33. I ran into the same problem when I tried to name my other blog. There's a reason I defaulted to Eucalyptus Way. The blog was intended to chronicle a seasoned East Coast woman's adjustment to West Coast ways. I riffed on California, on midlife crises, on change itself. I explored every possibility. The truth is, it's easier to name your child than it is to name your blog. And that is a piece of cake compared to, say, naming a new line of intravenous fluids. Healthcare and IT are gigantic baptismal maws that suck up all the most evocative names – the ones that instantly create a vibe, evoke an attribute of the product or just plain sound cool.

Finally, you cobble together a list of names, some of which aren't half bad. You google them as you go along and eliminate any names that crop up in your same category. Of course, if you're naming something for the international market, you're just getting started. Does your name mean toe jam in Hebrew? Heartburn in Danish? Group sex in Farsi? (Do they have a word for that in Farsi? Maybe not. If there is, the religious police would give you a good lashing just for uttering it.) Eventually, you realize that your winning monicker is Swahili for fuck your mother and you're back to square one.

So you move on to combining syllables, and again, any halfway decent sounding non-word belongs to some IT or pharma company. It's enough to make you want to howl at the moon. Some people specialize in this – the naming, not the howling– although I suspect they have their moments of animal despair after nomenclating for twenty hours straight.

A few years back, I was working on a pharmaceutical account. They had contracted an internationally famous branding agency to name a new medication, and they shared the results with our agency. The list consisted of a bunch of seemingly random three syllable names. Except they weren't really random because each syllable had a rationale. Rationales not unlike these:
" We used the syllable "Tor" because it's strong, evokes Taurus the bull, and also the Nordic god Thor."
"Na". Sounds like no - subtext is eliminating or doing away with. Also the root of Navigate - good for a chronic condition. "
"Vel? It's soft, like velvet. The el sound is feminine, like the word Elle. Works well for a dermatology product.
To make matters more challenging, the name has to be stealthily persuasive because it can't sound like a claim to the company attorneys. That's why, to this day, there is no medicine called Siknomor.

Names 101

On no! It's Finnish for enema!

Think globally, check globally.

Detour Through the Land of Cosmo

Even as a nubile young thing, I never was a Cosmo Girl. The hair, the makeup, the analyzing men as though they were a different species. I couldn't relate. It seemed like so much work. (I admit, I did like clothes - still do). Anyway, that demo is behind me now. Today, I am the mother of a young woman just the right age for Cosmo Girlitude. Except she takes after me.

So imagine my surprise when a shiny, hot-pink Cosmo arrived in the mail, with my name on the address label. Adele adorned the cover, all plump and fetching, her leopard print frock offsetting the burnished gold of her locks. I briefly considered tossing the rag but changed my mind. Gift horse – dentition irrelevant. At least I'd get to read up on Adele.

I picked up the magazine and my eye went straight to "When He Shouldn't See You Naked." Some hack milked a whole article out of that. The answer is simple. Never. Guess they pay by the word. Oooops. The piece is actually about the eroticism of semi nudity (no, they don't mean naked but for your socks) and smoldering looks. Me, I have to decide whether to wear distance or reading glasses before I can smolder. But I will give Cosmo props for covering both sides of a story, because in the same issue as "When He Shouldn't See You Naked" they also published this:



To strip or not to strip. What's a girl to undo? In "Seduction Secrets French Women Know", we read "Part of maintaining mystery is holding back a bit during conversations. " But in "5 Reasons Raunchy Girls Are Winning," it says "Comeons don't have to be subtle. Telling a man you want to "climb him like a tree" will most likely lead to faster, more satisfying results than surreptitiously exposing a bra strap and hoping he'll notice." Again with the objective reporting. How is a girl supposed to know whether to go all Jane Austen or channel Lady Chatterley?

Oooooh, lets look at the ads. Like this one, for "Le Male", a men's fragrance by Jean Paul Gaultier. Now I ask you, what is the gay male readership of Cosmo? Because this ad ain't aimed at chicks, be they young, old, cosmopolitan or trailer park. That is one homoerotic confection, and the sailor hat is the cherry on the sundae.



If you're not convinced, I suggest you take a long, hard look at the bottle for "Le Male". Notice the striped tank on that ripped blue torso. Can't you just hear the house music pulsing?



Sorry, Vince. I just don't think my orthotics will fit. There's a reason they call those things "fuck me shoes". Because those shoes really could fuck a shoe-whore in countless ways. Bunions, callouses, neuromas – and that's if you don't trip, fall and break an ankle.

More editorial content: "Is Being Too Nice Holding You Back?" Uh, no. Because I am not too nice.


I skipped "Sh*t My Man Says." After nearly 30 years of marriage, mine doesn't talk much. It's hard to get a word in when you're married to me. When he says something, I promise I'll get back to you. OK, lets check out some of the other feature stories.
"What's Sexy Right Now."
"How to Crank up Your Kissability."
"Fire it up!"
"Five Sensual Massages to Do Together."
The common denominator here is setting the stage for romance. So labor-intensive. It's not easy being young and single. As an old married lady, all I have to do is cock my head and say "Hey, Honey, it's Friday!"

Common ground at last! I totally agree with Cosmo on this new porn stash trend. It makes Jude Law, Marc Anthony and Anthony Kiedis look really sleazy. Not that they needed much help achieving that vibe. A man sporting this kind of facial hair is making some sort of statement. Probably one of these four:
A: I am a total sleezeball
B: I am playing a total sleezeball in the remake of Boogie Nights
C: I wish someone would remake Boogie Nights so I could star in it as a total sleezeball
D: How else am I supposed to conceal my raging attack of mouth herpes?



Now, I am an advertising copywriter, and this cheap ploy would have occurred to me right away, BUT it ain't funny nowadays. People are broke and desperate and what would have been cute when the nation was living high on the hog feels like a low jab today.



And now to the cover story, Adele. Here are a few things Cosmo taught me about Adele. She got discovered on My Space by some enterprising label exec. She wrote and recorded the song Rolling in the Deep the morning after the break up of her first serious relationship. She's never told a guy she loved him. And she remains hopeful about her relationship future.

There is more knowledge to be gleaned from this article, but Adele is a force of nature and her mystique should be preserved. That voice tells you everything you need to know. Adele is impulsive, soulful, passionate, direct and open. She does not conform to the weight norms of the fashion industry and she does not care.

She is probably not a Cosmo Girl.

Footnotes:
NOT a Saturday Night Live skit.

Sole Survivor