Tuesday, September 27, 2011

Crispety? How cutesy!

Well, looky here. Not only have the language mavens in Nestle's creative department added two new terms -- crispety and crunchety -- to the English lexicon, but they've also attempted to translate those words into Spanish.

Actually, I know enough Spanish to tell you that their "translations" are the Spanish equivalents of crispy and crunchy. So why bother to create the new words in English?

Do we English-speakers need our candy descriptions shaken up in order to want to buy more of it? Does a crispety, crunchety Butterfinger bar appeal to you more than a crispy, crunchy one?

Not me. Cut a coupla hundred calories off each bar (without changing the taste, of course) and then talk to me; otherwise, don't expect some fancy new words to make a new or bigger sale. Besides, we all know that hardly anyone actually reads the package, right? We want Butterfingers, we look for the bright-yellow bag with big blue letters. It could say Buttfingers and almost no one would notice (with the exception of copy editors -- and maybe some 8-year-old boys, who, as I know from experience, are obsessed with the word butt).

Crispety and Crunchety belong in the Graveyard of Desperate Marketing Terms, along with Baconator, Smell Gooder and Landfill (as a verb). I know there are more. Won't you add your favorites to the list?

1 comment:

  1. I loved Barney Miller too! Unfortunately, I didn't see (or don't remember) that episode. Awesome, though.

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