Tag: Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats

A Dose of Gobbledygook

 

“Gobbledygook” has three syllables, making it a suitable candidate for the brand name for a drug since they often have names that length, names such as Cosentyx and Myrbetriq. “Gobbledygook” doesn’t have any rarely used consonants, however, consonants such as “x” and “q” and “z”. Marketers also like to end their invented words for products with a vowel such as “a” or “o”, a practice they have followed with automobiles as well as drugs, as in Elantra, Levitra, and Toronado and Lexapro. Are they cars? Are they drugs? Manufacturers and their marketers spend millions of dollars to persuade prospective customers to feel good about their products and to feel they are unique, but it all ends up muddled together as gobbledygook.

Inspector George Larrick and the "American Chamber of Horrors" Exhibit (FDA 110) (8228181026)
George Larrick was the last investigator to rise through the ranks to become Commissioner (1954-1965) of the Food and Drug Administration. Inspector Larrick assembled an exhibit of dubious and even dangerous food and drug products, dubbed by reporters an ā€œAmerican Chamber of Horrorsā€, which effectively documented the need for what became the 1938 Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act. Photo from the Food and Drug Administration.

 

The pharmaceutical companies are under much greater restraints in product naming than the automobile manufacturers, who apparently invent their names merely from the results of market research and internal spitballing. All those names ending in vowels, a fairly rare occurrence in English, but more common in the Romance languages such as Spanish, may be intended by automobile marketers to make buyers feel they are getting something faintly exotic. Drug makers have to submit brand names of new products to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), which has rules to ensure drug names are sufficiently distinct from one another to minimize the risk of confusion which, in the case of drugs, could lead to serious complications or death for patients if doctors or pharmacists mistakenly substitute prescriptions. There is no comparable risk involved in driving an Elantra instead of a Celica.

Using a drug’s scientific name is not an option the drug companies seriously consider because those names are often more polysyllabic and unpronounceable than the silly brand names they ultimately invent. In a very few instances, a shortened form of the scientific name becomes generally recognizable, as in ibuprofen or acetaminophen, but those can’t be trademarked. Therefore we have the option of buying Advil or generic ibuprofen, Tylenol or generic acetaminophen. It’s no accident, by the way, that both of those brand names are simpler and easier to pronounce than more recent drug brand names, since both of them were developed over thirty years ago, when competition in the pharmaceutical market hadn’t heated up to today’s incandescent level.

What has changed since then has been the increasing average age of the population and the consequent increase in demand for medicines to treat their growing health complaints. Drug manufacturers are also not above boosting demand with lengthy and frequently repeated television commercials urging prospective users to pressure their doctors into prescribing the advertised medicine. They cover the other end as well by sponsoring junkets and giveaways for doctors, nudging them toward prescribing the latest drug they have developed.

A most excellent reading by Irene Worth and John Gielgud in 1983 of T.S. Eliot’s Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats. The entire book is presented in this video, but the part that concerns us here is the first poem, “The Naming of Cats”, which proceeds up to the 1:45 mark.

It’s a high stakes game for pharmaceutical companies that have spent millions of dollars on research and development for a drug, and then millions more on shepherding it through FDA approval, and finally marketing it. Notice how television drug ads are 60 seconds long instead of the usual 30 seconds, and how often they are repeated, particularly during the day when their target audience of older people are presumably at home watching. There’s gold in them thar hills of retirement, and pharmaceutical companies mean to get their share. Whether the residents of the golden hills are better off with the latest heavily advertised gobbledygook drug or something else, or with nothing at all, is up to them and not to marketers, no matter how warm and fuzzy the television ads portray their lives can be, to paraphrase the Rolling Stones “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction”, an old song the human targets of drug ads might still remember well.
ā€” Ed.

 

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Now Hear This

 

This is a golden age for listening to audiobooks on portable electronic devices like smartphones and iPods, but the high price of audiobooks still holds them back from becoming as popular as electronic books or printed books. Before the inclusion of compact solid state storage on portable devices, audiobook listeners were encumbered with multiple compact discs (CDs) or cassette tapes for each book. The combination of compressed audio formats with high capacity compact storage has unlocked a perfect setting for listeners to take advantage of audiobook downloads from the internet and then enjoy a seamless listening experience any time and anywhere.

 

While the marriage of hardware technology with software format is now ideal for enjoying audiobooks, the pricing remains a stumbling block. Regular prices can start at $15 and go on up to $100. In any case, the audiobook price is always the highest of any of the formats, from hardcover or paperback print to ebook. Production costs for publishers are higher naturally because of the need for voice talent, production personnel, and recording facilities. It may be that to produce a truly professional result the costs cannot be lowered, and therefore audiobook prices will remain high. That would be a shame, since the technological moment has never been better and that has in turn increased demand. If increased demand does not drive the price down, then most likely audiobook sales will hit a wall, and new listeners will no longer be drawn to the format.

Anker Sonntagnachmittag 1861
Sunday Afternoon, an 1861 painting by Albert Anker (1831-1910).

There are some alternatives to the business model of publishers producing audiobooks themselves or licensing their books to production studios, a model resulting in high overhead costs which increase the prices of best sellers and niche books alike. One alternative encourages authors to engage voice talent and production facilities and staff more or less on their own, knocking down the overhead costs. An author could still go for high concept production, but most have not. This business model has had the effect of increasing the overall amount of titles with audiobook versions, and at better prices than the standard publishers’ audiobook versions. It seems the publishing houses have been unable to take advantage of the audiobook’s golden age on account of their lumbering dinosaur steps, and a more nimble approach was needed.

Another alternative is the free model of LibriVox, staffed by volunteer readers using their home studios. The books they read are all in the public domain, and are free to download, with no digital rights management encumbrances. LibriVox is a laudable project, and even though there are no modern best sellers available for listening, the collection of classic literature is extensive. As can be expected with volunteer readers producing their efforts themselves from probably quite modest facilities, the results are wildly uneven, sometimes within the same audiobook, since LibriVox occasionally parcels out different chapters to several readers. Listening to LibriVox audiobooks is therefore a hit or miss experience which can be useful all the same in filling in gaps for a listener, especially when it comes to the classics.

The enjoyment of listening to a great storyteller goes back to childhood individually, and to the beginning of history for the human race as a whole.
It appears the audiobook industry has settled on the monthly subscription model as its most effective way to sell to listeners. Relatively few people are interested in buying titles outright considering the high prices. Subscription rates for only one or two audiobook downloads per month are also high, but at $10 to $20 they seem easier to swallow. The public library is yet another alternative for downloading audiobooks, although because of budget cutbacks libraries are having more difficulty than ever stocking a selection of audiobooks comparable to their print book inventory. For an audiobook fan with a middle class or slimmer amount of disposable income, putting together a home audiobook collection like a roomful of long playing records or several bookcases filled with paperback books is probably not feasible. For a frequent listener, the rental plan offerings are not very filling at only one or two audiobooks per month. A little of this and a little of that might be the best strategy for an audiobook fan with shallow pockets – a monthly subscription if it can be had at a good rate, an active library card, and an electronic bookmark for the LibriVox website.
ā€” Techly

 

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