WEED, Calif. — Vaune Dillmann thought the wording on his bottle caps was just a clever play on the name of the northern California town where he brews his beer.
Federal alcohol regulators thought differently. They have ordered Dillmann to stop selling beer bottles with caps that say “Try Legal Weed.” The agency, which regulates the brewing industry, said the wording could “mislead consumers about the characteristics of the alcoholic beverage.”
Dillmann scoffs at the notion that his label has anything to do with smoking pot. “I’ve never tried marijuana in my life,” he told The Associated Press on Wednesday. “I don’t advocate that. It’s just our town’s name.”
Xobni, the word “inbox” spelled backwards, has created a new way to look at your email. Xobni takes the effort out of organizing, searching, and navigating your email.
I Love Blow. And I love the job Blow energy drink mix has done with their product naming and branding. But the maker of this new energy drink mix powder you can add to your favorite beverage is coming under pressure to rehab its image. I don’t know whether it’s the name, the powder, or the images of sexy, half-naked young women on their website.
Worried that Blow and similar products are glorifying drug use, the Food and Drug Administration sent a letter to the makers of the energy drink mix last month, threatening legal action if the company does not rehab its image.
Named after the well-known street name for cocaine, Blow comes under scrutiny for being packaged and marketed as an alternative to cocaine, as well as for not complying with federal drug laws.
The letter states that Blow itself is an unapproved drug, “intended to affect the structure or function of the body.”
It also states that the energy drink mix does not have an FDA-approved application that legalizes its sale.
With a logo spelled out in white, grainy powder and its product sold in vials, the similarities between Blow and its illegal namesake are evident.
Last year the brouhaha was over an energy drink called Cocaine.
On May 5th, 2007, Cocaine was pulled from U.S. shelves as a result of the FDA’s decision that Cocaine was “illegally marketing their drink as an alternative to street drugs”. Redux Beverages began working on a new name for the product immediately. At the end of May, 2007, the Redux team decided to change the name to “No Name:” energy drink, with the new can label featuring a large blank space for fans to write their chosen name for the drink, covering the “Cocaine” on the can itself. On June 17th, 2007, the drink was redistributed in the U.S. under the new labelling.
However, Redux Beverages has recently announced that the drink will return to shelves under its original name early 2008. Cocaine’s founder and senior partner, Jamey Kirby, always believed they would get their name back. Said Kirby in June 2007, “Oh, we’ll get our name back. We’ll get it back.”
The drink is now available online at www.drinkcocaine.com or in local beverage stores around the U.S.
The beverage is also available in Europe, where it is still sold as Cocaine Energy Drink rather than Insert Name Here: as it is in the U.S.
Opium perfume? The name’s not so much a problem for the perfume by Yves Saint Laurent as the advertising, which caused outrage for being too sexually suggestive and likely to cause “serious or widespread offence”.
Attorney Marty Schwimmer reports on The Trademark Blog that an application has been filed to register the word mark VAJAYJAY for Goods and Services beauty, hair care and personal care products.
“I think vajayjay is a nice word, don’t you?” asked Oprah, when she used the neologism on her show as a euphemism for vagina, according to an article in the New York Times discussing the popularity of vajayjay.
The swift adoption of vajayjay is not simply about pop culture’s ability to embrace new slang. Neologisms are always percolating. What this really demonstrates, say some linguists, is that there was a vacuum in popular discourse, a need for a word for female genitalia that is not clinical, crude, coy, misogynistic or descriptive of a vagina from a man’s point of view.
“There was a need for a pet name,” said Geoffrey Nunberg, a linguist at the School of Information at the University of California, Berkeley, and the chairman of the usage panel for the American Heritage Dictionary, “a name that women can use in a familiar way among themselves.”
As Marty says, “This will be interesting.”
If girl-watching is a sport in California, where surf-loving Sports Illustrated swimsuit model Marisa Miller grew up, then Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show, which airs tonight on CBS, must be…well…let her describe it.
Monday, April 28th, 2008 |
naming process + pop culture + powerful names + product names + what the...? 
Attorney Marty Schwimmer reports on 
