Promoting Your Blog

After photographing the traffic cone the other day, my eye was drawn to a Post-It note affixed to the light pole. The Post-It note advertised Proscar® (finasteride), currently the leading medication to shrink one's prostate. There is questionable marketing value for any drug that appears to be promoting scarring, but I believe the name was a portmanteau formation of PROSTATE + NASCAR. Written on the Post-It note in shaky, loopy cursive was the message: "Go to allreligions.blogspot.com. You will be benefitted (sic)".

Unfortunately, I failed to take a close-up photograph, and the blog name that I remembered does not seem to exist. When I went back the Post-It note was gone. I believe they are only rated for 5 mph wind shear, enough to handle most office environments, but not the outdoors.

Overall, an unsuccessful promotional effort in so many ways.

Portmanteau, Part Deux

We love our portmanteau words here at Salt in Wound. But with great power comes great responsibility. So I believe we must also serve as Portmanteau Police, seeking out infractions of the form.

Case in point: A radio commercial for the Subaru Forester that I'm guessing is not airing in the greater Topanga area. The voice talent mentions that the vehicle is "perfect for snow and mud, or the very common smud."

Oh, sure, "smud" is fun to say, and calls to mind "smog" (smoke + fog), which I think they do have in the greater Topanga area. But it places entirely too much emphasis on the mud half of the equation. No, the word that should've been used in this instance is snud.

And I'm sure William Safire agrees with me.