The contingent meaning of –ex brand names in English

Abstract

The -ex string found in English product and company names (e.g., Kleenex, Timex and Virex), is investigated to discover whether this ending has consistent meaning across coined words and to observe any constraints on its attachment and interpretation. Seven hundred and ninety-three -ex brand name types were collected and examined, derived from American English texts in the Brown and Frown corpora as well as over 600 submissions to the US Patent and Trademark Office's Trademark Electronic Search System database (TESS); American native English speakers were also surveyed to assess interpretations of -ex meaning in brands. Analysis of these coined terms reveals that -ex meaning is contingent, reflecting assumptions by a given speaker of a referent's domain in a given time, region and culture. Yet, despite ambiguities in its interpretation, the -ex form shows increasing use.

Linguistic Choice in a Corpus of Brand Slogans: Repetition or Variation

“…These morphological variations represent efforts by business enterprises to persuade consumers to accept a brand's unique vocabulary. Names ending in -x, like the soap Lux, apart from it denoting "light" through its Latin etymology and connoting "luxury", are considered good examples of brand names because they are short, distinctive and end in -x (other well-known examples are Kleenex, Rolex, Moulinex) (Room, 1991;Stvan, 2006). Other aspects at the lexical level that have been found are related to orthography where a word consists of unusual or incorrect spelling (view -vue, vu or clear -klear, kleer, cleer) and neologisms, the creation of new words (belightful, jobfully, owlet).…”

Análisis lingüístico de un corpus de eslóganes y frases publicitarias de marcas comerciales.

“…A pesar de que con anterioridad autores como Friedman (1985a,b;1986a) habían observado un aumento del uso de nombres de marcas en su estudios diacrónicos, Stvan (2006) no contabilizó una gran cantidad de dichas marcas en los Corpus Brown y FROWN (Freiberg-Brown). El acceso a la base de datos Trademark Electronic Search System (TESS) de la USPTO le proporcionó a Stvan una mayor cantidad de nombres de marcas acabados en -ex, que era su principal objetivo.…”