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Can you tell which aliens are good and which are evil, the Smoothheads or the Bumpyheads, based on whether they are called "leebish" or "grecious"? If so, you're a good candidate for testing at Carnegie Mellon, where researchers have shown that naming things with labels creates mental categories, helping people learn faster. So reports today's New York Times, in the article, When Language Can Hold the Answer: The finding may not seem surprising, but it is fodder for one side in a traditional debate about language and perception, including the thinking that creates and names groups.
In stark form, the debate was: Does language shape what we perceive, a position associated with the late Benjamin Lee Whorf, or are our perceptions pure sensory impressions, immune to the arbitrary ways that language carves up the world?
The latest research changes the framework, perhaps the language of the debate, suggesting that language clearly affects some thinking as a special device added to an ancient mental skill set. Just as adding features to a cellphone or camera can backfire, language is not always helpful. For the most part, it enhances thinking. But it can trip us up, too. The gist is that language "greases the wheels of perception." However, after that initial greasing, it can then get in the way: In another experiment, Dr. Lupyan showed subjects a series of chairs and tables using pictures from the Ikea catalog. Some subjects were asked to press a button indicating that the picture was of a table or a chair. Other subjects pressed a button to make a nonverbal judgment about the pictures, for example, to indicate whether they liked them or not. Dr. Lupyan found that the subjects who used words to label the objects had more trouble remembering whether they’d seen a specific chair before than subjects who had only pressed a button in a nonverbal task.
Language helps us learn novel categories, and it licenses our unusual ability to operate on an abstract plane, Dr. Lupyan said. The problem is that after a category has been learned, it can distort the memory of specific objects, getting between us and the rest of the nonabstract world.
Posted by
snark on Tuesday, April 22, 2008 @ 11:10 PM
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Looking for just the right invective to hurl at someone? Give old François Rabelais a go. Specifically, Sir Thomas Urquhart’s 1653 translation of Rabelais’ classic satirical adventure, Gargantua and Pantagruel (written 1532-1542). Here's a sample: The bun-sellers or cake-makers were in nothing inclinable to their request; but, which was worse, did injure them most outrageously, called them prattling gabblers, lickorous gluttons, freckled bittors, mangy rascals, shite-a-bed scoundrels, drunken roysters, sly knaves, drowsy loiterers, slapsauce fellows, slabberdegullion druggels, lubberly louts, cozening foxes, ruffian rogues, paltry customers, sycophant-varlets, drawlatch hoydens, flouting milksops, jeering companions, staring clowns, forlorn snakes, ninny lobcocks, scurvy sneaksbies, fondling fops, base loons, saucy coxcombs, idle lusks, scoffing braggarts, noddy meacocks, blockish grutnols, doddipol-joltheads, jobbernol goosecaps, foolish loggerheads, flutch calf-lollies, grouthead gnat-snappers, lob-dotterels, gaping changelings, codshead loobies, woodcock slangams, ninny-hammer flycatchers, noddypeak simpletons, turdy gut, shitten shepherds, and other suchlike defamatory epithets; saying further, that it was not for them to eat of these dainty cakes, but might very well content themselves with the coarse unranged bread, or to eat of the great brown household loaf. A shout out to World Wide Words for scratching at this slubberdegullion of the English language.
Posted by
snark on Wednesday, March 26, 2008 @ 10:39 PM
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There's an interesting article in today's New York Times – Putting Innovation in the Hands of a Crowd – about a new startup called Kluster, "the newest in a lineup of companies using the Web to channel the collective wisdom of strangers into meaningful business strategies." That has been the Wordlab philosophy for a decade now, minus that bit about having a meaningful business strategy. The mention in the article of ideas "proudly found elsewhere" taps right into the ethos of Wordlab and our free community forum, the Wordboard: Don Tapscott, the business strategy consultant and co-author of the book “Wikinomics,” said executives were quickly warming to the strategic value of “P.F.E.” ideas, or those “proudly found elsewhere.”
“Throughout the 20th century, we’ve had this view that talent is inside the company,” Mr. Tapscott said. “But with the Web, collaboration costs are dropping outside the boundaries of companies, so the world can become your talent.”
Mr. Tapscott, who credited Procter & Gamble with the P.F.E. concept, said executives can go overboard with the idea of outsourcing innovation if, in seeking such help, they expose too much of a company’s trade secrets. But so far, he knows of no business that has done so.
“They always err on the other side,” he said. “They don’t do enough.” So, if you are in need of free or incentive-lubricated naming help for your company, product or goldfish, check us out. The Wordboard is up to nearly 10,000 registered users waiting to chime in with advice.
Posted by
snark on Monday, March 03, 2008 @ 10:09 AM
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 February 29, 2008
Posted by
Michael Davey on Friday, February 29, 2008 @ 7:29 AM
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Posted by
Michael Davey on Wednesday, February 20, 2008 @ 9:06 PM
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 According to a study issued Monday by the National Retail Federation (NRF), the average consumer plans to spend $122.98 on Valentine's Day, up from $119.67 in 2007. Total retail spending for the Feb. 14 holiday is expected to reach $17.02 billion. Of the 61 percent of consumers who plan on celebrating Valentine's Day this year, the NRF said nine of ten will spend the most on their significant others or spouses. But other loved ones will not go forgotten: six in ten plan to buy something for their family members, and two in ten said they would send a gift to friends. This year, over 48% of love birds plan to celebrate the day by taking their significant others for a special night out, up from 45% in 2007, the NRF said. But the federation said other traditional Valentine's Day presents will remain popular too, with nearly 48% of consumers planning on purchasing candy, 36% with expectations of buying flowers, and 17% who said they would buy their special someone jewelry. Of course, it is important that the recipient knows who his or her special admirer is - 57% of those surveyed plan on buying a card for their Valentine, the NRF said. Source: CNN Money
Posted by
Michael Davey on Thursday, February 14, 2008 @ 3:50 PM
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 That's Brian Christmas in the background...I think you get the picture. According to Ancestry.com:
The surname Christmas originated in Wales, sometimes given to people born on Christmas Day.
There are 89 people named Mary Christmas in the U.S. [no mention Wales or elsewhere on this one].
Other Christmas-related names on U.S. Public Records include: Jack Frost, Santa Claus, Santa Helper, Carol Christmas, On Christmas and Christmas House. Other names found in the U.S. Public Records include: Xmas Alley, Past Xmas, Eve Xmas, Kris Kringle, Snow Ball, Snow Flakes, Saint Nicholas, Rudolph Reindeer and Ginger Bread [I think I knew a stripper named Snowball].
There is no Frosty the Snowman, but 1,700 individuals show up with the surname Snowman in the census records [1700 Snowmen and not a Frosty among them? ...wimps].
Christmas is also a popular first name, according to census records. These include Christmas Joy, Christmas Day, Christmas Week, Christmas Coal, Christmas Cane, Merry Christmas Kellogg and Christmas December.
That's it for Christmas - Happy Seasonal Tides and Greetings!
Posted by
Michael Davey on Saturday, December 22, 2007 @ 8:05 AM
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 Have a listen to Weekend America's piece: Forget Ads, What's Your Brand?, which chronicles the unconventionally successful marketing approach of Hollister Co., the $1.4B annual sales boost for parent Abercrombie and Fitch. Almost every Saturday, 15-year-old Emily Erickson is at the Mall of America in Bloomington, Minn. Most of its 500 stores don't interest her, except Hollister, a clothing store for teens. Hollister is odd. It's dark, with music so loud you can't hear yourself shop. The air is filled with a deep citrus scent that stays on your clothes for hours. But Emily loves it and keeps coming back. Hollister's "brand" invites her to become part of a particular tribe, and to show her allegiance by wearing its clothes. It's part of the way that branding has taken over from traditional advertising. We hear from brand designer Joe Duffy about the concept of "brand" for clothes, kids and even countries.
...So Emily and Hollister have found each other. It's not just about cute clothes. It's about being part of group, your tribe, the people who care about the things that you care about, who think about the things you think about. Duffy says this has been part of a massive change in marketing. It's becoming easier and easier to ignore and even avoid ads, so they have to speak to you in other ways.
Posted by
Michael Davey on Monday, December 03, 2007 @ 8:52 PM
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 According to the National Retail Federation President Tracy Mullin, Black Friday this year will go down as one of the earliest and most promoted in history. He believes consumers will back down, however, after the initial surge. "This is what I call a false start," says Mullin. Personally, I never understood the attraction of waiting in line in the Wii hours of the night for once-a-year retail spoils, but I love the stories. Here is a personal account of Michael Lowe's Black Friday shopping this year, which began around 2:30 AM: The parking lot wasn’t full, but it was crowded. The long lines of
eager bargain zombies waiting in the cold and dark for cheap underwear were becoming longer by the minute and looked like something out of a strange movie, like “March of the Penguins” meets “The Price Is Right.” ...more
Posted by
Michael Davey on Saturday, November 24, 2007 @ 1:02 PM
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 Big brother is watching you. You knew that. But how about all the little brothers and cousins googling you from time to time? "Everyone is an individual brand -- the 'you' brand. If managed incorrectly, this can have negative consequences when it comes to getting a job, advancing your career or maintaining a positive reputation..." more....
So, can you remove unwanted search results about yourself from the search engines? It may be possible and there are steps you can take, but according to Leo Notenboom (Ask-Leo.com) it is pretty much a lost cause. Think carefully then about profile information you attach to yourself online; screen names, interests, etc. If you jokingly listed a serial killer as personal hero in a forum profile several years ago or even if you gave yourself your a seemingly innocuous screen name like Skaterdude at some point, the information remains and can influence how a potential employer, co-worker, customer, mate, etc., might perceive you. Be careful with your brand kids. It's the only one you've got.
Posted by
Michael Davey on Sunday, November 11, 2007 @ 11:10 AM
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 In announcing its bad products awards for 2007, Consumers International
said the top prize went to the US subsidiary of Japanese firm Takeda
Pharmaceuticals for promoting a sleeping drug for children. The company ran a
television advertisement in the United States which used images of children,
chalk boards and a school bus to sell its drug Rozerem.
Posted by
Michael Davey on Tuesday, October 30, 2007 @ 11:12 AM
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 I started a new blog, Centrifugal Deforest - Stock Market at a Lance. It will update each market day and is focused on the upcoming bear market in the US; whenever it comes; this year, next year or sometime in your grandchildren's grandchildren's future - I will be there. The name doesn't really refer to the stock market - hell, it doesn't refer to the stock market in the least. And apparently I am breaking all the finer rules for smart blog-naming. So, perhaps the name is clunky, meaningless and impossible to remember. Actually, it is not totally meaningless. Centrifugal Deforest was the term that sprang to mind some years back when I heard the pseudo-scientific theory that the Earth's rotation is beginning to accelerate as the world's tall trees come down. Exactly the way the ice skater spins faster and faster as the arms are brought inward. So until I am forced to re-name, like virtually every project in the past, I'm sticking with it. Posted by
Michael Davey on Thursday, October 25, 2007 @ 10:27 AM
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 For drug makers, finding a name is more art than science. Say no more... At Wordlab, we've been giving away names for pharmaceuticals for 10 years now. (Black)beauties like Pheno Barbie Doll, Knowitol and Wheeze Ease. We handed the industry gems like Tinkol, Timuloss and Fornican't; unfortunately they chose Flomax, Ambien and Viagra. We thought Sorebegone; big pharma championed Valtrex. As the bipolar pipeline bulged, we went insane with Downwithol, Pardonal, Disenthral, Excluda and even Dimentia AC...of course, they pretended to ignore us again with Elavil, Lexapro, Paxil, Nardil and even Wellbutrin. Ok, Wellbutrin ain't so bad, and I can always Elavate Life with Elavil. Still... I could go on - I probably shouldn't. Whoa, that's actually a good tagline for the next manic management wonder-med - that special Disappointment Ointment which barely collects dust inside my medicine cabernet. I need a drink.
Posted by
Michael Davey on Monday, October 15, 2007 @ 12:21 PM
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Great little article about word coinage and naming by Steven Pinker in last Sunday's Los Angeles Times, How do we come up with words? Here is a morsel, about the viral nature of baby names and the human tendency to want to be different, but not too different: Many people assume these fads are inspired by celebrities (Marilyn Monroe made Marilyn popular) or social trends (biblical names are popular during religious revivals; androgynous names are a legacy of feminism). But sociologist Stanley Lieberson has pored through naming data and disproved every one of these hypotheses. The cause of baby names is other baby names. Parents have an ear for names that are a bit distinctive (as if to follow Sam Goldwyn's advice not to name your son William because every Tom, Dick and Harry is named William) without being too distinctive (only celebrities can get away with naming their children Moon Unit or Banjo). The trends arise when everyone tries to be moderately distinctive and ends up being moderately distinctive in the same way. I love that advice from Sam Goldwyn. And that bit about everyone trying to be distinctive but ending up being "moderately distinctive in the same way" reminds me of the clusters of like names we see in nearly every industry. Take SUV names, for instance, where all the automakers tend to promote a "rugged individualist" theme, then serve up the same kind of names for their vehicles, often named to evoke either the idea of exploration -- Blazer, Discovery, Expedition, Navigator, Safari, Scout, Tracker, Trooper -- or of a mythically rugged western pioneer landscape -- Montana, Rainier, Santa Fe, Sequoia, Sonoma, Tacoma, Tahoe, Yukon. So all of you rugged individualists out there looking express your distinctiveness through your choice of ride, these big beasts of cars are betraying that ideal by blending their names in with each other. Also fascinating in this article is the idea that naming trends cannot be reliably predicted or engineered, because they are dependent upon the behavior of the masses, and that behavior is chaotic: Pundits often treat a culture as if it were a superorganism that pursues goals and finds meaning, just like a person. But the fortunes of words, a cultural practice par excellence, don't fit that model. Names change with the times, yet they don't fulfill needs, don't reflect other social trends and aren't driven by role models or Madison Avenue. A "trend" is shorthand for the aggregate effects of millions of people making decisions while anticipating and reacting to the decisions made by others, and these dynamics can be stubbornly chaotic.
This unpredictability holds a lesson for our understanding of culture more generally. Like the words in a language, the practices in a culture -- every fashion, ritual, common belief -- must originate with an innovator, must then appeal to the innovator's acquaintances and then to the acquaintance's acquaintances, until it becomes endemic to a community. The caprice in names suggests we should be skeptical of most explanations for other mores and customs. Yes. Beware of "expert" opinion that labors to convince you that "scientific" explanations -- linguistics, focus groups, trend analysis -- trumps good old fashioned meaning, story, history, mythology, poetry, rhythm, and shared knowledge when considering names for companies, products, or services. Anything else is just putting ketchup on a potato bug.
Posted by
snark on Tuesday, October 02, 2007 @ 9:31 AM
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 Northern sky watchers should be alert for auroras tonight. Earth is inside a high-speed solar wind stream that is causing intermittant geomagnetic storms. Here is the view from Mo i Rana, Norway, on Sept. 29th: Posted by
Michael Davey on Sunday, September 30, 2007 @ 5:02 AM
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 Lil' Wrigley, above, is told his birth name for the first time.
Posted by
Michael Davey on Monday, September 24, 2007 @ 6:08 AM
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Come on in to the Wordboard and help wiaYouth name the new Leadership Program for Out of School, disadvantaged youths in Tennessee. The goal is to re-engage the low income, 18-21 year olds, over a 7-county area, by enlisting multiple contractors and launching an adult mentoring program. They are federally funded and will be contracting for job-readiness skills, educational attainment and citizenship...and according to wiaYouth, these kids were "too cool to go to school," so overly cute names won't fly butter. Not uncommon, quark here has ignored all the dog-walking and pet-grooming posts of late on the WB and focused entirely on naming this new non-profit. Here is my thinking so far, but the kids could use more voices from the brain farm here, so why not get involved? Wild Care Leadership and Mentoring
(okay, probably not what we're after)
TAME - Tennessee Adult Mentoring and Education
[Some other acronyms that could work if you can make them...]
SPARC
CORE
MOTION
READY Re-Engaging Advantaged Disadvantaged Youth ...(almost)
REDY - Re-Engaging Disadvantaged Youth (worse?)
[oh, here we go...]
YOU TURN - Leadership Program for Youth
hipYouth
LpYouth
LP Youth - Leadership Program for Youth
Youth MP - Mentorship Program for Youth
LEAD - Leadership Education and Adult Direction
TAMEL - Tennessee Adult Mentoring Education and Leadership
AMYCE - Adult Mentoring for Youth Careers and Education ...Damn, I might have to open one of these centers myself.
Posted by
Michael Davey on Friday, September 21, 2007 @ 5:21 AM
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 Ikea has launched a new, interactive branding campaign for North America, in the form of a giant photo contest. Participate in the largest-ever collaborative photo event - September 17-23, 2007. America at Home - A Close-up Look at How We Live...go easy on the furniture guys.
Posted by
Michael Davey on Tuesday, September 18, 2007 @ 10:23 PM
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 It's FOMC Tuesday and a time for Ben 'hold-this-bag' Bernanke to shine. Get the entire Parent's Guide series, only from Wordlab... Search Results: 29 entries containing the "parent's" string of letters. A Parent's Guide to Abortion - Nonfiction Titles A Parent's Guide to Bait & Switch - Nonfiction Titles A Parent's Guide to Chicken - Nonfiction Titles A Parent's Guide to Chomsky - Nonfiction Titles,Politics A Parent's Guide to Dog Food - Nonfiction Titles A Parent's Guide to Gambling - Nonfiction Titles A Parent's Guide to Gentrification - Nonfiction Titles A Parent's Guide to Group Sex - Nonfiction Titles A Parent's Guide to Hegemony - Nonfiction Titles A Parent's Guide to Imperialism - Nonfiction Titles A Parent's Guide to Nietzsche - Nonfiction Titles A Parent's Guide to Panic - Nonfiction Titles A Parent's Guide to Pee Wee Herman - Nonfiction Titles A Parent's Guide to Ponzi Schemes - Nonfiction Titles A Parent's Guide to Romance - Nonfiction Titles A Parent's Guide to Running Amok - Nonfiction Titles A Parent's Guide to Russell Crowe - Nonfiction Titles A Parent's Guide to Secured Credit Lenders - Nonfiction Titles A Parent's Guide to Silicon - Nonfiction Titles A Parent's Guide to Suicide Bombing - Nonfiction Titles A Parent's Guide to the Bush Administration - Nonfiction Titles,Politics A Parent's Guide to Throw Up - Nonfiction Titles A Parent's Guide to Vice - Nonfiction Titles A Parent's Guide to War Crimes - Nonfiction Titles A Parent's Guide to War on TV - Nonfiction Titles A Parent's Guide to Witchcraft - Nonfiction Titles A Parent's Guide to Wanderlust - Nonfiction Titles A Parent's Guide to World Domination - Nonfiction Titles Going Postal. A Parent's Guide - Nonfiction Titles
Posted by
Michael Davey on @ 12:43 AM
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 Richard Branson's Virgin Group has sold the chain of 125 Virgin Megastores in the UK and Ireland for an undisclosed sum; to a management buyout team, Zavvi Entertainment Group. This follows the group's sale of US record stores earlier this year. "In the last six years we have been withdrawing from entertainment retailing, which is no longer viewed as core to the group's future," Branson told the BBC. Virgin began as a mail order record company in 1970. The next year they opened a store in London's Oxford Street and eventually formed Virgin's megastores' flagship shop in 1979. During this next month the stores will be re-branded as Zavvi.
Posted by
Michael Davey on Monday, September 17, 2007 @ 5:05 AM
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