Commenting on the ridiculous nomenclature that has emerged in the Web 2.0 start-up-a-thon, John Murrell crafts this doozy of a sentence: "Gaboogie has refocused its business and is now called Lypp. It could face competition from Foonz, with its new offering, Utterz."
Indeed.
It's comforting (and oddly up-puffing) that as odd a title as I chose for my own foray into Web 2.0 with my blog this year, at least they were all real English words, guaranteed to conjure recognizable physical realities in Anglo-oriented brains, pink, fluffy and otherwise. And I didn't succumb to the temptation to futz with them, either, even though I could have without losing the connection to real "you can stick your finger in this!" meaning. For example, I could have called this little rag, "Pink Fluffy iCing 4 Brainz" and been really iN WiTH THE hiP MARKETiNG CROWD. Or with just a little tweaking that would have emphasized the erudite literary content of the blog of my dreams, I could have opted for "p_Ink Fluffy" and just left y'all wondering...
Of course, in the wild and wacky world of Web 2.0, it's always good practice to google*, well, everything, but especially potential names for newly hatched web sites (and a blog is sort of that.) And what, you ask, lands at the top o' the list in a Google search for "pink fluffy"?
Pink Fluffy Corset Gallery and On-line Corset Shop: the worlds largest corset emporium. Now stocking latex!
Indeed.
It might have made for an interesting business opportunity as a pass-through portal to a classy burlesque troupe. But in the end (ha! sorry), it would have not been worth the risk. One can only imagine the untold hours I would have spent deleting spicy comments and crafting letters of explanation/apology to the children and in-laws.
Snigger as we might at the "Lypps" and "Utterzs"** and "Gaboogies" of the world. You can bet your bottom Bux.com they did their Google "what shall we call ourselves?" homework.
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*When Oxford says "google" is the word (verb) of the year for 1998, and its somewhat shaggy cousin, Merriam Webster concurs, who are ANY of the 20 of us to quibble? Not me, that's for sure. (I actually did quibble once with someone on a different and unrelated topic but found it far too delicate an undertaking for my liking: no contact. I far prefer gently flicking my opponent on the forehead until they cede the point.)
**Not at all sure that would be the correct spelling of the plural "Utterz," but that edgy uncertainty is part of what makes being a linguaphile such an exciting and annoying to others experience.
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