too much typing—since 2003

7.07.2006

tripping over one's tongue

I ran into an ad for a Christian festival of some sort called "Lifest." Now, my first reading of that word is as an odd sort of superlative - which I suppose is apt enough, but probably not what the organizers intended. I suspect, instead, that they're running together "Life" and "Fest" - but spelling it "Lifest" puts a burden on anyone pronouncing it out loud, since it will most likely sound exactly like "Lie-fest" - a festival of lies - which is hardly what a Christian organization would want to be thought of, I'm guessing. Sure, you can pronounce both Fs to distinguish...but that would be a far likelier result if the word had been spelled "Life-Fest" - or even (and they're getting a special dispensation in relation to my normal policy regarding intercapitalization) "LifeFest."

A similar sort of pronunciation stumbling block seems to have escaped whoever came up with the name for the AmericInn chain of hotels. I get it: they're combining "America" or possibly "American" with "Inn"...but try saying it out loud. Either it's indistinguishable from "American," and thereby loses the pun - or you have to push hard on the "Inn" and put a sort of stop after the "k" sound. Both possibilities (or the two combined) sound odd and unnatural. I suppose I could find out if and how they surmount this issue by calling their switchboard - but that would be too much like research, and that in turn would be too much like work.

And I am lazy.

3 comments:

yellojkt said...

I think I have stayed at an AmericInn once. I can't decide whether they are a really nice Motel 6 or a crappy Hampton Inn. I wonder what uber-travel chain really owns them.

And I assume LifeVest is a Christian rock version of the Warped Tour, but there's no telling.

Anonymous said...

it will most likely sound exactly like "Lie-fest" - a festival of lies - which is hardly what a Christian organization would want to be thought of, I'm guessing.

I don't think ANY organization would want to be thought of in such a way.

Well, maybe satanists; I don't know what the story is with those guys.

Anonymous said...

I would almost expect it to be run by the (horrifyingly puffy) Greg Kihn.