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 http://www.styleweekly.com/article June 2, 2004 Words We Buy By Rosie Right A picture may seem to be worth a thousand words, but don't agree too quickly. A new book "Wordcraft: The Art of Turning Little Words into Big Business" by Alex Frankel (Crown, $24) makes a good case for the power of words. Frankel has studied and worked in the business of creating names for new products that want to find their way into our daily life and into our vocabulary. He says that "words owned by corporations have become core components of our modern language, if not a new language entirely, seeping into vernacular speech. "Instead of drinking a cup of coffee, for example, increasingly we 'get Starbucks.' We 'do the StairMaster' We 'fedex packages'. ..."These terms are selected with great care and expense by linguists and word mavens and sold for significant prices to the corporations that are anxious to find a place in our psyches. Believe it or not the term BlackBerry was selected for a new pocket-size instrument that functions as a telephone and as a versatile receiver of e-mail. And guess what: The term was picked, Frankel writes, because it "mimicked natural, organic language. ... And the word was not a coined word but a real word that people already had positive associations with. ..." If you are interested in how the process works this short book should entertain you. Return to Press |
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© 2004 Alex Frankel. All rights reserved. |
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