I chose the word Lightninged (not lightning) to name a product. It means literally be struck by a lightning, and it is a real word as discussed in ELU: What is the past tense of “lightning”?. The name is inspired by this quote of Mark Twain:
The difference between the almost right word and the right word is really a large matter. ’tis the difference between the lightning bug and the lightning.
Since the origin word of lightning is lightening, and lighten relates to enlighten, therefore lightninged can be understood as enlightened. This picture conveys exactly what in my mind:
My product is about learning advanced English vocabulary. Since I emphasize the importance of using the right word, I think it's a suitable name. Does the word have a bad connotation when used as a name for this thing?
After reading the comments, I have some thoughts:
- Didn't the founders of reddit think the same to me when they named their product?
- Since no native English speaker will need to learn English vocabulary, and for all non-native English speakers any English word that they don't know is new, what would be a problem to use it for non-native ones? Related question on Language Learning: How would non-native readers percept writing that has no problem, but sounds unnatural to the native speakers?
- Mark Twain also said: "Thunder is good, thunder is impressive. But lightning that does the work". So definitely I won't encourage people to use the thundered words.
Meta discussion: I name a product with an English word, and many people say it's a bad name. Can I ask why it's bad here?
Best Answer
There are two famous sayings that most native English speakers know:
and
The problem is that, while "everyone" knows them, they're both wrong. The actual quotes are
and
The reasons why people remember the wrong versions are varied and not important - but I bring them up because a café opened here named "Far From The Madding Crowd". A good name for a café as a place of respite from the daily grind (pun intended...).
But literally every day more than one person came in and told them that their sign was wrong. They ended up making a big sign inside explaining that the name was right, the customer had been told the wrong thing, and they weren't going to change the name of the café. And still people insisted that the sign was wrong - they refused to learn.
This is one example of why naming something that people think is incorrect is a bad idea. It may make it memorable, and you may teach people something (if they're willing to learn), but you may also alienate them instead.
Some names are deliberately misspelled, with a *wink* to the reader, and people think "Oh, that's clever!" Sorry, but in my opinion "lightninged" isn't one of those.