Nancy Friedman

Since Costco relies on membership, they could easily pass the refund on to their customers. Easiest pr win a company could make.

Pled head This time: pled or pleaded? British kids talking trash? Last words and words of the year. Plus more links than you'll click, but isn't it nice that they're there?

Cutting it fine again...November's Separated by a Common Newsletter is up and out!

Includes: pled or pleaded? British kids talking trash? Last words and words of the year. Plus links, links, links

lynneguist.substack.com/p/pled-head

Some very clever gift merch from fellow namer and brand strategist Maggie Balistreri. I love AI'NT: "Added to written work as an affirmation that you, a human, wrote it without AI." Giftable! www.maggiebalistreri.com/store-1

This Is Always Interesting: “52 Things I Learned In 2025” One of my favorite end-of-year lists is Tom Whitwell’s annual record of 52 things he’s learned in the past year. Some favorites of mine from the 2025 installment: 4. You can unlock the wheels on a shopping cart by pla

52 interesting things Tom Whitwell learned in 2025, including “The Ceremonial Bugle is a small plastic device that slides into a real bugle & allows a non-musician to perform” and “Nearly 0.7% of US exports, by value, are human blood or blood products”. [kottke.org]

Nancy Friedman Name developer and brand critic, Visual Thesaurus contributor, blogger, lapsed journalist.

I also write for @stronglang.bsky.social

stronglang.wordpress.com/author/chief...

Archive - Fritinancy Full archive of all the posts from Fritinancy.

I've written a lot! And subscriptions are still free.
fritinancy.substack.com/archive

All nonfiction:

Everything Is Tuberculosis, @johngreensbluesky.bsky.social
Careless People, Sarah Wynn-Williams
America, América, Greg Grandin
Joyride, @susanorlean.bsky.social
Unabridged, @stefanfatsis.bsky.social

Word of the week: Kewpie The cartoon, the dolls, the mayo, the trademark challenge, the cookbook.

All about Kewpie, the century-old Nebraska-to-Japan cultural phenomenon.
fritinancy.substack.com/p/word-of-th...

Word of the week: Kewpie The cartoon, the dolls, the mayo, the trademark challenge, the cookbook.

Here you go! fritinancy.substack.com/p/word-of-th...

__ the Fog, personification of Bay Area weather

At last, an acrostic clue I can solve.

#wordoftheyear #woty2025

Hahaha

I wish I could remember who proposed that Bluesky posts be called bleats instead of skeets because that person deserves an award.

It's short for Cupid.

'Tis the season to shop local

Yelp is 'tissing with a wrong-way apostrophe.

#tistheseason

OK, I've plunged down a very deep Kewpie rabbit hole. I'm afraid I'm going to have to write about the whole history, from cartoon to dolls to books to Japanese mayo.

YouTube video by hardballget Everything Old Is New Again, Anne Reinking and Erzsebet Foldi

Love this song and the dance number, too (All That Jazz) #LyricsPrompt
youtu.be/ZRVv2b-hL_0?...

November linkstack My Black Friday gift to you: news about names, brands, language, and culture.

Language-y, brand-y news and opinions, feat. @annamerlan.bsky.social @americandialect.org @oupress.bsky.social and more!
open.substack.com/pub/fritinan...

Thanks for everything all month long, Iva!

... and once again I fat-fingered the spelling of #Lyrics

Should I re-post?

YouTube video by Warner Bros. Everything Is AWESOME!!! -- The LEGO® Movie -- Tegan and Sara feat. The Lonely Island

Day 30: Everything
#LyrivsPrompt #LyricsPrompt2025

Everything Is AWESOME!!! | Tegan and Sara

(#CanCon for ya, Iva!)

youtu.be/StTqXEQ2l-Y?...

For the Love of Kewpie: A Cookbook and... book by Kewpie Corporation Buy a cheap copy of For the Love of Kewpie: A Cookbook and... book by Kewpie Corporation. THE OFFICIAL KEWPIE COOKBOOK Celebrate the cult-favorite mayonnaise with stories, history, and delicious recip...

TIL there's a whole new cookbook devoted to Kewpie, the Japanese mayonnaise brand. Publisher is the Kewpie Corporation.

share.google/NwFFgDqXzwfE...

an ad for the new series “welcome to derry” with the tagline “go back to where IT all began“, except somehow, they highlighted the word “to“ instead of “it“

"oh, don't forget to highlight, in bright red, the two-letter word in the tagline! the two letter word that's kind of the whole point of this clever ad campaign! the two letter word that links this show to the horror movie of the same name!"

"no problem boss. i'm on it"

There's also "based out of" instead of (more familiar to me) "based in." Preposition overload!

Is it ‘based on’ or ‘based off’? Based on the evidence, ‘based on’ is the preferred choice.

[We don’t know why “based off” (often extended to “based off of”) is moving into territory “based on” has occupied since the mid-18th century, but we do know that its use is relatively new.]

www.merriam-webster.com/grammar/base...

YouTube video by kebmoVEVO Keb' Mo' - The Medicine Man ft. Old Crow Medicine Show (Official Audio)

Day 29: Medicine
#LyricsPrompt #LyricsPrompt2025

The Medicine Man | Keb’ Mo’ & Old Crow Medicine Show

youtu.be/MfNpa372t-Y?...

He keeps calling it a ballroom but a ballroom is a place for dancing. What he wants is a gilded Holiday Inn banquet room where businessmen can shmooze, grope the waitresses, see and be seen, and cut crooked deals.

Every Chinatown you Jake

Every hay you make

Workplace Word Origins: Black Friday, chef, boutique Philadelphia traffic jams, Greek storehouses, and Latin heads.

Your latest Workplace Word Origins roundup, aka LinkedIn leftovers, on the blog hits 'Black Friday,' 'boutique,' and 'chef.'

mashedradish.com/2025/11/28/w...

Credit to @benzimmer.bsky.social and @btaylorblake.bsky.social for work on 'Black Friday,' coverage of which was I felt due for a reheat.