By Marcia Yudkin

Why snackrifice?

This headline appears on the back of a box of Triscuits (textured wheat crackers). Although it uses a word that isnt in the dictionary, the instant you say the word to yourself, you understand its meaning. A snackrifice would involve forgoing the delicious snacks you enjoy, because of health, cost or other concerns.

This kind of word blend shows up occasionally in product, company and event names, as well as in labels for political groupings and demographic trends.

In the winter of 2011, people in the U.S. mid-Atlantic states were talking about a massive blizzard as Snowmageddon also called a snowtastrophe and snowpocalypse.

This type of verbal invention goes back at least to Lewis Carroll, whose character Humpty Dumpty explains a poem called Jabberwocky to Alice in Chapter 6 of Through the Looking Glass.

Well, slithy means lithe and slimy, Humpty Dumpty expounds. You see, its like a portmanteau there are two meanings packed up into one word.

Some more recent, relatively established examples of blended words are Bollywood (Bombay + Hollywood), brunch (breakfast + lunch), smog (smoke + fog) and prequel (pre + sequel).

What makes an invention like this effective? Here is a five-point scoring system that separates the winners from the weaklings.

Points 1 and 2 signify whether or not the two words being combined are recognizable out of context. If both are, give the name two points; if only one is, give it one point. Id give prequel two points, since no other word besides sequel ends in -equel, and the intention of the pre twist is crystal clear.

Id give Bollywood only one of two possible points here, because while -ollywood can evoke only Hollywood, what the B stands for has to be learned. Indeed, the B reference is even more obscure than it once was, now that Bombay is known in the West as Mumbai. And Id give slithy zero points, as its derivation from slimy and lithe is quite unguessable.

For corporate word-blend names, Id give Verizon one of the two possible points, for its obvious resemblance to horizon and obscure reference to veritas, the Latin word for truth. Ditto for Accenture, where its easy to recognize the initial meaning element accent, but difficult to figure out that ture comes from future. The product name Fruitsations gets two points here, because you most likely know immediately that the name implies fruit plus sensations.

Point 3 signifies how neatly the two words fit together. Snackrifice wins this point too, because snack rhymes perfectly with the sac syllable it replaces. All three snow disaster words bandied about last month lose this point, however, because snow does not rhyme with the Ar in Armageddon, the ca in catastrophe or the a in apocalypse. Slithy again loses the point, since the m of slimy got inexplicably lost in the combination.

For point 4, evaluate whether the name has just one plausible pronunciation. Here snackrifice prevails again, but Verizon falls short. I distinctly remember when the company was new not knowing whether it was intended as very-zahn or very-zone. In fact, its ve-RYE-zahn, an option that didnt occur to me.

Point 5 is admittedly subjective. It signifies whether or not a word lover gets a shiver of delight contemplating the blended name. Id give this point to Bollywood, Snowmageddon, slithy and snackrifice, but not to brunch, smog, snowtastrophe or snowpocalypse.

Thinking up word blends can become addictive! Be sure to run your creations through this five-point test before pegging expensive marketing campaigns on them.

About the Author: Marcia Yudkin is Head Stork of Named At Last, a company that brainstorms catchy tag lines, company names and product names according to the clients criteria. Download a free copy of 19 Steps to the Perfect Company Name, Product Name or Tag Line at

namedatlast.com/19steps.htm

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