The trap is called 'conversation', right?

Subject: The trap is called 'conversation', right?
Author: Huinesoron
Posted on: 2016-05-03 16:33:00 UTC

I'm usually so good at avoiding those. Even when I don't want to. :(

Waaaaait, are you saying the aspirin is irrelevant to the operation of Bleeprin^TM? But, but, it relieves the pain! I remember this!

I honestly don't know if Hoover still make hoovers; let me check! Yup, looks like they do (and they make roombas, too! [Ducks]). I don't think I've ever seen one. Coke, of course, is just cola (which is a generic term); if you're using it for non-cola-related ~~soda~~ ~~pop~~ carbonated nonalcoholic drinks, you're doing it horribly wrong.

I agree that brand names should be correctly formatted when used as such (except Lego, because I refuse to type LEGO all the time, ta very much), but if a (fiction) writer is using a term which is used generically - whether or not the original company has successfully defended their trademark in a legal sense - they are/can be entirely correct to use it as a generic.

hS

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Resource request by Bramandin on 2016-05-02 15:29:00 UTC Reply

Could we have a text file of common PPC terms with proper capitalization? The point would be that someone could run the document through their spell-check and it would teach the spell-check the proper spellings.

I can't look up the proper spelling of things on my story-typing computer.

What to include:
Most common bleep-products including suebeprophen,
Neuralyse variants,
Weird verbs like portalled,
Stuff that doesn't seem like it shouldn't be capitalized, but is.

Please and thank you.

In the meantime... by Neshomeh on 2016-05-02 17:41:00 UTC Reply

I wrote a very basic guide to capitalization with these very issues in mind. It may help.

~Neshomeh, who forgot to mention this in her last post.
An interesting idea. by Neshomeh on 2016-05-02 17:34:00 UTC Reply

Sort of like creating a style sheet. I like it.

The trouble is, we don't all agree on everything. For instance, I'm fairly adamant that words like agent, assassin, floater, etc. should not be capitalized except when used as a title or specific address (e.g. Agent Acacia, "Do your duty, Assassin."), but there's a bit of a history of treating them as special words and thus capitalizing them, and a lot of people do that. And then there are a few cases where the title is based on the name of the department, like Bad Slasher, in which case it retains its capitalization; plus, without caps, it would be hard to tell in this case whether you were referring to an agent in the DBS or a writer of bad slash.

Also, "neuralyze" and "portaled" are subject to regional spelling differences. I feel that fandom words such as "neuralyze" should always be spelled as they are in their home canon, but on the other hand, I'm not going to argue too much if a British person spells it "neuralyse" in their missions. Same with "portaled"—as an American, I give it one L, like in totaled, but a Brit would be perfectly correct to give both word two Ls.

The names of Bleep products should always be capitalized, though, like brand names.

So really we would need at least two sheets, just to cover American vs. Commonwealth differences.

... I might do it anyway, just for kicks. But not today; I have work.

~Neshomeh

Wonders why it keeps using British spelling. (nm) by Bramandin on 2016-05-05 15:56:00 UTC Reply

Settings. by Neshomeh on 2016-05-05 17:51:00 UTC Reply

I don't know what word processor you're using, but Word and OpenOffice, and probably others, can be set to American or British English. You may wish to investigate this.

~Neshomeh

Isn't 'bleeprin' genericised, though? by Huinesoron on 2016-05-03 10:19:00 UTC Reply

And 'bleepka', for that matter?

In fact, none of them are structured as brand names as such - they're all named as mashups of their ingredients.

hS, troublemaker

No more than Kleenex is. by Neshomeh on 2016-05-03 15:31:00 UTC Reply

It's a proprietary form of brain bleach manufactured exclusively by HFA, which I'd say makes it a brand. It's not just any old brain bleach; it's Bleeprin. Accept no substitutes—or you'll regret it.

LOTS of drug names are mashups of their ingredients. They're just more obscure about it. (Interesting article; as a chemist, maybe you knew this stuff already?)

Plus it's capitalized in the source material.

So... nyah. {; P

~Neshomeh will not be troubled.

It's not brain bleach, though. by Huinesoron on 2016-05-03 15:47:00 UTC Reply

It's brain ble(e)ach plus aspirin. And is almost certainly not manufactured exclusively by HFA any more. ;)

I don't know about Kleenex - we just use tissues over here - but Coca Cola is just coke these days, even when it's Pepsi (which must really tick off Pepsi). And even a Dyson vacuum cleaner is a hoover. Are PPC agents writing about Bleeprin^TM in their reports, or are they writing about pill-formed mixtures of brain bleach and aspirin which are known as bleeprin? I'm guessing it's the latter.

Which makes the source material irrelevant, since genericisation happens over time. And I refuse to believe that there's someone in the HFA Bleeprin^TM Laboratory producing, say, Bleepesteem^TM.

Though if I ever write that story about The Day The Bleeprin Went Away, I may conclude otherwise. ;)

The article: I didn't know that (I avoided pharmaceutical chemistry); interesting. I withdraw that objection entirely; you're absolutely right.

hS

(PS: I have actually depicted the production of bleep... sigh... "a mixture of brain bleach and aspirin, provided in tablet form"... before now, and I think I'm the only person to do so. But it's in an unreleased project, so you can't see it ner ner ner.)

Aha, you've fallen into my trap! by Neshomeh on 2016-05-03 16:15:00 UTC Reply

I'm kidding; there is no trap. But I have an excellent rebuttal: the addition of aspirin to the brain bleach is precisely what sets Bleeprin apart from the generic stuff, and is a tactic infamously used by drug companies everywhere to establish patents and rake in the big bucks. Oh, you want a new patent but your drug is too similar to another drug? Just tack another compound onto the one you actually care about, claim it enhances it or whatever, and you're all set! Trademark secured.

I bet some of you still hoover with a Hoover, though. As for saying "coke" when you mean soda/pop, that's just you and the American South. You'll forgive me if I don't take regional aberrations of dialect too seriously as an argument. ^_~

I'm not saying genericization (ick, what a mouthful) doesn't happen, but that doesn't excuse serious writers from capitalizing a brand name when used as such. Whether agents are in fact doing so is a good question. Mine are, at least. {= )

I have no defense for the Bleeprin knockoffs. A lot of them are explicitly just cooked up in someone's RC, and I can't think of any real world cases of something derived from a brand retaining its capital. Probably because attempting such a thing would get you sued in the real world.

~Neshomeh

The trap is called 'conversation', right? by Huinesoron on 2016-05-03 16:33:00 UTC Reply

I'm usually so good at avoiding those. Even when I don't want to. :(

Waaaaait, are you saying the aspirin is irrelevant to the operation of Bleeprin^TM? But, but, it relieves the pain! I remember this!

I honestly don't know if Hoover still make hoovers; let me check! Yup, looks like they do (and they make roombas, too! [Ducks]). I don't think I've ever seen one. Coke, of course, is just cola (which is a generic term); if you're using it for non-cola-related ~~soda~~ ~~pop~~ carbonated nonalcoholic drinks, you're doing it horribly wrong.

I agree that brand names should be correctly formatted when used as such (except Lego, because I refuse to type LEGO all the time, ta very much), but if a (fiction) writer is using a term which is used generically - whether or not the original company has successfully defended their trademark in a legal sense - they are/can be entirely correct to use it as a generic.

hS

All-caps stylizations are optional. by Neshomeh on 2016-05-03 17:04:00 UTC Reply

As are no-caps stylizations, for that matter. In fact, no-caps stylizations have no place outside the product's label.

But yeah, aspirin is totally irrelevant to the function of Bleeprin as brain bleach—and the brain bleach is totally irrelevant to its function as a painkiller. You could, of course, take generic brain bleach and/or aspirin, together or individually, but if you want the specially balanced combined action version, you want the one, the only, Bleeprin. Go ahead. Quaff a kind nepenthe. Because you're good at what you do, and you deserve the best in quality amnesia. {= )

But now I'm distracted by the fact that colas are theoretically supposed to taste like kola nuts, but are actually mostly flavored with cinnamon and vanilla, and yet they all taste absolutely awful to me. I wonder if actual kola nuts are nice without all the phosphoric acid and other junk.

~Neshomeh

I dunno about nice... by Scapegrace on 2016-05-03 18:13:00 UTC Reply

But I do know that they're apparently a moderately potent hallucinogen! So it might taste like the colour purple smells, idk. =]

Oh, also! by Neshomeh on 2016-05-03 16:32:00 UTC Reply

Bleeprin has official promotional material. Here's an ad, and in here you'll find mention of a light-up bouncy ball with the Bleeprin logo on it.

You may thank Tungsten Monk for both of these things.

~Neshomeh

Oh, crikey. by Huinesoron on 2016-05-03 16:35:00 UTC Reply

Now you've made me want to write the thrilling tale of Agent Daisybert's knockoff bleeprin lab, and Meir Brin's crackdown against it in defense of the trademark, all watched over by the Legal Department.

Except that sounds like the PPC version of the Coruscanti segments of The Phantom Menace.

hS

Hey, OFUs don't pay for themselves, you know. by Neshomeh on 2016-05-03 17:06:00 UTC Reply

What, you think the students are paying tuition? Pshaw. ^_~

~Neshomeh, pretty sure she's the troublemaker now.

Of course they do. by Hardric on 2016-05-03 17:09:00 UTC Reply

It's the 47th paragraph, alinea 8 ter. It's micro printing of course, but they pay tuition alright. ^_~