Descriptive names definitely have their place, but you always have to be careful about tripping over everyday language….

Last week, I traveled with two of my young kids to DC. My cousin met us at the baggage claim, prepaid for parking at an automated machine, and off we all trundled to her Audi. So far so good. But then: a snag. All the tollbooth signs read, “Pay and Go.” “Well, of course you can pay and go, silly,” we both said with exasperation. “What about folks who’ve prepaid?”

The brilliant namer among us finally ascertained that Pay and Go is in fact the name of Dulles’ prepaid parking system.

Note to namers: sometimes the target audience is “tired moms who’ve been traveling for six hours with high-maintenance companions.” Name should not be confusing in any way.

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Buzzword of the Day

splog: A fake blog created by spammers as a home for their ads and scams. Of the 7,000 new blogs started each day, nearly 10% are now splogs. (Sorry, there’s nothing humorous about this one.)

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It’s short for “spam blog”. Until I got this email, I did not know such a thing existed. But hey! There are even sites set up to report them, like Splog Reporter, Fight Splog!, and SplogSpot. It’s sad but true: We really are drowning in spam, just like the Monty Python sketch that originate the term - pretty soon the Internet will have to call it quits, and the credits will roll.

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The city of Atlanta is giving itself a name refresh. They’re new moniker: ATL. It all started with rap artist Outkast singing about “cruising in the A-T-L” in one of his songs. The Brand Atlanta Committee decided that with the pop culture reference and the airport designator also being ATL, it made perfect sense to use the letters to give a new “fresh” face to the capital of Georgia.

The notable examples of successful city abbreviations include: SF, LA, NY or NYC, NOLA, and potentially DFW (although it’s really a metro area). In each of these cases, each letter abbreviates a word: Los Angeles (LA), New York City (NYC), Dallas Fort Worth (DFW), etc. Each of these abbreviation is an intuitive replacement, and also shorter and easier to say than the original.

The two notable examples of marketing-inspired initialisms are FLA (Florida), and ATL (Atlanta). In neither of these cases is the abbreviation intuitive — they don’t shorten three longer words. Nor are the abbreviations shorter or easier to say than their original counterparts. Because of this, I find it unlikely that people will actually add FLA and ATL to their vernacular.

However, far be it from me to be able to predict the wacky world of initialisms. If FLA and ATL are the beginning of a trend, here are a few other abbreviations that cities might consider exploring:

ALBU (pronounced al-boo) - Albuquerque, NM
CGO - Chicago, IL
ELP (pronounced like ‘help’, without the ‘h’) - El Paso, TX
MPH - Memphis, TN
MIMI (pronounced mee-mee) - Miami, FL
VEG (pronounced vedge) - Las Vegas, NV
LULU (pronounced loo-loo) - Honolulu, HI
and finally
W (pronounced dub or dubya!) - Washington DC

It’s an irrelevant initialism party, and everybody’s invited to abbreviate!

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Posted to the American Name Society list by HJ Wilk:

The definitive word on the geography of cylconic storms: In the Atlantic, both South (rare, but not unknown) and North, they are known as hurricanes. In the Eastern Pacific, they are also known as hurricanes. In the Northern, Western Pacific, they are typhoons. In the Southern, Western Pacific, and on and just to the West Coast of Australia, they are cyclones.  In the Northern Indian Ocean, the type that strike Bangladesh, India, etc., they are also cyclones, as well as are those storms in the Southern Indian Ocean, the ones that strike on or are near Madagascar or the Southeast Coast of Africa..

Meteorologically speaking, these are all the same kind of storms, except the Coriolis effect is operative, and Northern Hemisphere storms turn counterclockwise, while Southern Hemisphere storms turn clockwise.

Source: C. Donald Ahrens, Meteorology Today, 5/e, ISBN 0-213-027793. West Publishing Company, Minneapolis/St. Paul, 1994 

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With hurricanes much in the news lately, I’ve been thinking about what it must be like to share the name of a particularly devastating storm. I speak as the parent of “Hurricane Camille,” who at age almost-2 does indeed leave a path of destruction in her wake. (Camille, incidentally, was the second most intense U.S. hurricane on record — one of only three class 5 storms to ever hit land. And yes, this did give my mother-in-law pause….)

Turns out Atlantic hurricane names are selected by the World Meteorological Organization, and the same list repeats every six years. The list only changes when a storm is so devastating that future use of its name would appear insensitive. So we’ll never again see a Charley, Frances, Ivan, or Jeanne — all 2004 hurricane names that have been retired.

How then will the Katrinas and Ritas of the world fair? My guess is that they’ll be affected far more than the Andrews and Charleys. Since the latter names are much more common, their countless non-storm associations dilute the impact of a single, negative event, however promiment. In selecting distinctive baby names, parents always run the risk that their child’s rare namesake will be an ax murderer or famous porn star.

So to all the Beryls and Ernestos out there, may the second and fifth storms of ‘06 be mild and unmemorable.

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I’ve never been a big fan of initialisms that replace names, but TIAA-CREF really pushes me to the edge.

A part of me can understand why they made the move to the initials. Alphabet soup is one thing, but “Teachers Insurance and Annuity Association College Retirement Equities Fund” is a whole dinner seating. However, if you’re going to make a change, don’t settle for the easy, almost-as-awkward solution. I cringe every time they spell the name on NPR.

The problem is exacerbated by the fact that the organization is now spending millions promoting this awkward brand. Someone, somewhere should have had the foresight to think about spending some cash upfront to change the brand before they started marketing it to the mainstream. I saw the letter string during a football game on CBS this weekend. Huh? Someone, please connect the dots for me.

Moral to this story? If you’re going to spend a bundle promiting something, spend a piece of that bundle improving what you have to promote.

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Podutopia. This is the cover of the latest MacMall catalog, which I just got today, and I’m mystified by the name. “Podutopia” sounds like an island nation or a disease. Why not something coined and a little more natural, like “Podtopia”, or “Poditopia” (keeping in the lowercase “i” in a different position)? Anyway, I think it’s a bad name.

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