What Would Sherwin Think?

A friend recently enlightened me on the correct term for the extra skin on the bendy-out-y part of one’s elbow; she said it is called a wenis, alternately spelled weenis or wenus. I suddenly had a vision of middle-aged guys in white lab coats, chilling in a break room, laughing themselves silly as they invented names for obscure parts of the body. Sadly, for the sake of my imagination, it turns out that wenis is simply a slang term; the real name, olecranon skin, does not hold the same ability to make you do a double take.

But the mental picture conjured up by that word triggered other questions about The People Who Name Things: Who names paint colors? And how do they name them? I tried to picture a class of third graders, drawing a picture and writing a paragraph about what they want to be when they grow up. What type of child thinks, “I’d like to invent the names of paint colors”? (As a side note, one of my off-spring, as a third-grader wanted to be a gondolier, so it is possible.) Or a group of high school graduates, sitting in their solemn-looking caps and gowns, dreaming of the future: Which one is thinking, “I am just bursting with color names here! Hurry up with that commencement address before I forget them all!”

Just on the Sherwin-Williams website alone, there are over 1,500 paint colors and somewhere in the neighborhood (meaning a total was not listed, and I am too lazy to look it up) of 100 colors of stains. Now add all the color names of Valspar, Olympic, Behr, Glidden, Martha Stewart Living, etc. Frankly it boggles the mind! Here’s a very small sample of orange color paint names from Sherwin-Williams: Daring, Daredevil (plagiarism runs rampant in the paint industry), Rejuvenate, and Emotional are some of their single word titles; then there are tags such as Energetic Orange, Knockout Orange, Obstinate Orange, and Inventive Orange. So, do they just have a computer program where someone enters a bunch of adjectives and nouns, including common color names, which are then randomly paired (such as Captivating Cream and Connected Gray), and just as randomly assigned to a particular shade--such Innocence or Jovial? I would assume they try to go for more positive sounding names, because it might be more difficult to sell Irritable Orange. Or Wenis. 

Or is the process more organic? Is it like a big Mad Lib party: “Trudy, I need an adjective AND a beverage;”  “Okay, Fred, name a part of the body.” That would be pretty sweet. Especially if you all got to kick off your shoes, sit around on banana chairs, or pillow pals, and munch on inspirational snacks (possibly generating names such as Sparkly Slurpee, Guacamole Green, Mellow Hummus, or Melty Mint Magnum: “Dude, Elbert! You got a triple bonus for that!”)

Either way, I must say I admire their creativity. Maybe I should hold a paint-naming party, too. I’ve always wanted to rest my olecranon skin on a pillow pal, while munching inspiring hummus. (Hummus is quiet? Whatever.) In the mean time, feel free to share any awesomely paint colors you have used, or would like to invent.