Made up Words

It drives me crazy.

Day after day I watch television , read newspapers and articles and see it.

You’ve seen it too I would guess and it just creeps along like it has a life of its own.

What am I talking about ? Why made up words being used as commonplace nouns, verbs and etc. of course.

You know the kind of word I am talking about right?

Watch a few commercials on TV and you’ll see them, Ones like:

• Fashionista (what the heck is an ista anyway)
• Accuweather forecast (from the news and weather channels)
• Also AccuTrack and anything with an- iffic at the end of it , like Wonder-iffic

Most of the time these come from the lunatics that are in charge of marketing products to us on the TV. They feel like if they don’t have a new word to describe something, we won’t pay attention to it.

Well I got news for them, we don’t pay attention to them anyway. These are the same maniacs that think it is a good idea to put a live shot of some talking head on the left hand side of the screen, a horizontal crawl at the bottom of the screen, a vertical talking points panel on the right hand side of the screen and also have a channel logo inserted at the bottom right hand corner, because they think they are utilizing the entire screen to get their message across. It just pisses me off and makes me want to change the channel or mute the station.

Yeah, those idiots.

Same nuts that would have you believe we should buy everything Billy Mayes used to yell about.

Same morons that think if we repeat the phone number 27 times in 30 seconds , more people will call it.

So we have three small examples : I’m sure you can think of many more.

1. One is the words that they make up in order to describe something that they are trying to sell you, whether its adverting or to market a product.
1. How did a chamois become a SHAM-WOW otherwise ?

i. Chamois - A very soft, oil-tanned, suede-finished, leather, originally made from Alpine antelope, but now made from sheepskin splits. Known for its' absorbency.

ii. SHAM-WOW – see chamois

2. Another are the words that are used to describe something that actually mean something else entirely
1. For example, think Segway (as in segue)

i. There’s a word that already existed in nature, but was modified to describe a 2 wheel transportation device

3. The last is the way they use a made up word and attach it to another useful word in order to come up with a third word
1. This is the category that Fashion- Ista, Max-Inista and everything else with –Ista on it, fits into.

Another whole sub-set of this irritation is how marketing folks will make up words to describe a set of numbers that actually could have been described with a normal word, but then they wouldn’t get to charge millions of dollars to present the findings if they didn’t somehow “sexy” it up.

• Think for example , like Day-Part, a word they use to describe a specific time of day.
• Drive-Time, Day Part, Meal Period all mean the same thing if you are talking about 8 am .
• It’s called Breakfast time or Morning.

Don’t confuse this with Oxymoron’s however. (See (Oxymoron’s and the lies of Marketing)

FYI : An Oxymoron is a combination of contradictory or incongruous words, such as 'Cruel Kindness' or 'Jumbo Shrimp' (Jumbo means 'large' while Shrimp means 'small').

It is a literary figure of speech in which opposite or contradictory words, terms, phrases or ideas are combined to create a rhetorical effect by paradoxical means.

Try this : http://www.oxymoronix.com/

Some of my favorites are:

1. Military Intelligence
2. Unbiased Opinion
3. Microsoft Works
4. Exact Estimate
5. Virtual reality

I’m not even going to get into the medical ad issue , where they name a drug some archaic made up name in order to make you think it is something more powerful than it is and can cure everything from soft toenails to pimples.

• One of my favorites in this class is Clopidogrel (also known as Plavix)
• Clopidogrel is an oral, thienopyridine class antiplatelet agent used to inhibit blood clots in coronary artery disease, peripheral vascular disease, and cerebrovascular disease.
• It is marketed by Bristol-Myers Squibb and Sanofi-Aventis under the trade name Plavix. The drug works by irreversibly inhibiting a receptor called P2Y, an adenosine diphosphate ADP chemoreceptor.

Ah well, I guess that’s how crusty old farts like me get to be crusty old farts.

Thankx for reading my rant !

bigmike

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