Flowers and pearls: already "bostitched" today?

If your own brand or product name makes it into the dictionary, then "you've made it". The preliminary stage of this is being used as a verb or umbrella term. Of course, this actually happens quite rarely and this exclusivity alone makes it a kind of distinction. But can this quasi-immortality be bent somehow?

When a new brand or a new product is launched, particularly shrewd marketers like to briefly check whether the name suggestions floating around could also be used as a verb or as an umbrella term. But this is hardly relevant. After all, language can do almost anything anyway - and whether it sounds "nice" doesn't really matter in the end. If someone had these thoughts back then at the "Bostitch" company in the USA: Chapeau! But then the product or the company would probably have a different name. It doesn't get much stranger than that.

Stapler? Stapler?

But Bostitch has just solved a problem. And we're not talking about the loose sheets of paper fluttering around. Apparently, at least in Switzerland, there didn't seem to be a satisfactory name for this device and the associated activity, so the company name Bostitch was quickly coined. Did this thing and the associated activity not even exist in Switzerland before? Or was "stapler" and "stapling device" simply too German? In any case, it struck a nerve of sorts, filling a linguistic vacuum. So well, in fact, that many people no longer even know that Bostitch is not a device, but a company. Some even think it's a technical term from the stationery industry.

One might argue that it would be an absolute worst case scenario if the product is a huge success - but unfortunately the name cannot be used as a verb! As is supposedly the case with Galaxus: Or have you ever galaxed today (or would it be "gelaxt" or "gegölaxt", as a mixture of gegönnt and Galaxus)? The problem here is that galaxus does not solve a problem linguistically, because there is no problem: There is simply no need to find another word for "bestellen" or "Onlineshop". That's bad luck for Galaxus.

Create the problem and then solve it

The name "Google" is also not at all a good verbalization, but it has crept in without hesitation. Because it is simply better than "searching for something on the Internet using a search engine". With "Twinten", the corresponding activity simply didn't exist before the product - a forced verbalization, so to speak. Or to put it another way: along with the product, Twint also created the linguistic problem that it immediately solved again.

Sure: in hindsight, everything seems somehow logical. But it helps to think about whether there is even a linguistic necessity or gap that can be filled before thinking about the most elegant verbalized application of a new brand or product name. And even then: if Bostitch makes it into everyday language, then so can others.

Of course, there are also these desperate attempts to use the name as a verb or umbrella term via advertising. Like "Nogger yourself one!". Go ahead and google it, preferably via image search. Together with this absurd appearance, it was somehow weird enough for the slogan to be dropped sarcastically. After all, it has made itself virtually immortal in its own way as a dubious but much-used example of the problem at hand.

Analyzed since 2025 Sarah Pally In her column "Blossoms and Pearls", she uses industry-related terms and comments on them with a personal touch, from a linguistic perspective - as well as with a precise view of developments in the industry. Pally is a partner in the Partner & Partner agency in Winterthur. She has been working in the fields of content marketing, text/concept and storytelling in the communications and marketing sector for 15 years.