Posts Tagged ‘books’
‘Wordcraft’ details birth of brand names, semantics of ‘berries’
Tuesday, May 25th, 2004
There is a moment every marketer both dreams of and fears. It is the time when a brand name, by decree of the dictionary or whims of the zeitgeist, becomes a common noun or a verb. This can be a blessing — the ultimate validation of a name that is both catchy and meaningful. But it can also be a curse. The more widely a word is used, the harder it is to legally protect as a trademark. So we “xerox” a memo, “fed-ex” a package or “google” a blind date, to the chagrin of squads of copyright attorneys in corporate headquarters.
In a brand name’s infancy, however, the thought of gaining this kind of cultural currency is an inspiration to professional namers, says Alex Frankel in his new book Wordcraft: The Art of Turning Little Words Into Big Business (Crown, $24.95).
‘Eats, Shoots & Leaves’ takes on poor punctuation
Thursday, April 8th, 2004
Centuries ago, the word “stickler” meant the judge of a duel who made sure all the rules were obeyed. To author Lynne Truss, those were the good old days. At least people listened to that kind of stickler.
…
Truss has tried to change that with her book “Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation,” which became an unexpected best seller in Britain and will be released in North America
Buy My Book
