So anyway, surely you’ve noticed that marketers tend to add extra words and terms to their product names to punch them up a little. A product that was once titled “Unit” is revised and then called “Unit Plus.” These days, it can be “Unit Ultra” or “Unit Max.” The words don’t actually describe anything, they’re just decorative. It’s odd, isn’t it? I think they’re called “Modifiers” in the trade.

…Is there a trade for this kind of thing?

Come to think of it, is there some kind of international regulatory body for these peculiar little words? Companies seem to borrow the modifiers from others liberally, and they run through the marketing-sphere virally. Soon every product is a “Max” or an “Ultra.” It’s absolutely infectious, and it feels completely unoriginal. Just the same terms used over and over again. They mean virtually nothing, but they’re treated like they do.

So I wrote down a few for my own amusement, and as things tend to go for me, I had a list of dozens before long. Now what do I do with it? Then I remembered I had built a whole website where I could post them.

The List

^{“…” Is a stand-in for a product name or term. Where you see “…” without a space before or after a term, it is an indication that the modifier is appended to a word directly, such as “MegaUnit” instead of a separate word.}

^{Where descriptive nouns such as “Gold,” “Ice,” or “Blue” are used, it is assumed that the product itself is not made of gold or ice nor blue, it’s just an affectation. If it was truly descriptive, it’s not a true modifier.}

^{A “Category” entry indicates that there are several appropriate words that can be used around a theme, but listing them all would be a bit tedious and unnecessary, so just a few examples are shown so you get the idea.}