Conversion is the process of taking something and modifying it to be used for a different purpose. With PhraseWorthy’s new Conversion feature, you can do just that with your product or company name.

Take a look at this ad for Binko, an imaginary insurance company:

“Life’s better when you Binko.”

A fine slogan. But there are some complicated things going on beneath the deceptively simple language of this phrase.

“Binko,” the name of our imaginary company, is a noun. But that’s not how we used it in this slogan. If you try to replace “Binko” with other nouns, the results are a little odd. “Life’s better when you paper.” “Life’s better when you car.” It just doesn’t work.

By using your company name as a verb (or adjective or adverb) instead of as a noun, you give customers a phrase that is out of the ordinary and that sticks with them. You also associate your company’s name with other positive words that would fit in the sentence. Check out another slogan:

“A penny Binko’d is a penny earned.”

Now our company’s name has naturally become synonymous with the word “save,” a connotation that we certainly want to encourage.

The PhraseWorthy Conversion feature generates catchy, memorable slogans, and it gives your company’s name new meaning. Head on over to the PhraseWorthy app and try it out!

As you have used the PhraseWorthy application, you might have asked yourself, “How can a computer come up with wordplay like this?” PhraseWorthy is only able to do what it does because it is structured around linguistic patterns, formulas, and principles that researchers have discovered. In this post, we will introduce you to the linguist responsible for bringing together the research that makes PhraseWorthy possible—Dr. Dallin D. Oaks.

Dr. Oaks is a linguistics professor at Brigham Young University, Provo. He has always been interested in language, and as a child he did local performances as an amateur ventriloquist. Dr. Oaks studied English teaching at BYU and earned a Ph.D. from Purdue University with a specialty in English linguistics.

Dr. Oaks is an expert on structural ambiguity in the English language. He authored the two-volume book, Structural Ambiguity in English: An Applied Grammatical Inventory. (This book was included in the Oxford Bibliographies, which curates only the most significant scholarship from the last few decades.) Dr. Oaks has given numerous presentations on the topic of structural ambiguity in language and has even been featured on several radio programs.

Understanding linguistic rules about topics like idioms, phonology, and particularly ambiguity is what allows PhraseWorthy to generate catchy slogans and puns. Dr. Oaks had the idea to take the linguistic formulas that he discovered and to turn them into a program that anyone could use. And that’s how PhraseWorthy got its start!

An anecdote

When I first started college, I thought that I knew how it worked. Here was my image: When you start college, you chose a major. That major had a list of classes that you had to take. Once you finished all of those, you could graduate.

As plenty of college students will tell you, a college experience is rarely so straightforward. My experience involved changing my major three times as well as enrolling in a myriad of classes that had nothing to do with my graduation requirements.

While frustrating at times, this experience helped me learn a valuable lesson—viewing the world through a narrow lens can rob you of valuable opportunities. Although my website design, advertising, and computer science classes were not a part of my required course list, I was able to make connections through them that expanded my vision and creativity.

How often do you find yourself in a creative rut?

PhraseWorthy gives you the tools to make lateral connections and create inventive wordplay that goes outside of the box.

Synonyms and close matches

Under the “Explore” tab on the PhraseWorthy app, there is a “Synonyms and Close Matches” feature. Consider this scenario:

Suppose you are trying to create a clever name for a quilt shop. You type in the word “quilt” in the PhraseWorthy app, and while you find a couple of good options, nothing seems quite right to you. Then, you scroll down to the Synonyms and Close Matches feature. There you find quite a few words that you’d like to explore, and you decide to branch off and explore “sew.” Suddenly, your options have more than doubled! You settle on “You Reap What You Sew,” a witty choice from the Swap Idioms tab.

(Did you know? You can click on any blue word in the PhraseWorthy app to add it to your list of words!)

Do you see how exploring just one related word led us to a whole new set of inventive options? Try using the PhraseWorthy app to discover new wordplay possibilities for yourself!

With PhraseWorthy’s capability, just one word can lead you to hundreds of catchy names and slogans. Let’s face it, though–hundreds of options can be a little overwhelming.

Are you looking for a quick way to generate two or three interesting phrases and don’t know where to start? In this post, we’ll outline three great PhraseWorthy features that will have you finding clever wordplay in seconds.

 

For each of these methods, the first step is to choose a word to start your search. Let’s say you are starting up a dress shop; you might type in the word “dress” to start your word list.

Now the fun begins!

Method 1: Swap Idioms

Do you want a simple phrase that is sure to make someone smile? Head over to the “Swap Idioms” tab on the left side of the PhraseWorthy app’s page. You will be greeted by a host of idioms that use words just different enough from your word to be funny. Take a look at our “dress” example.

Imagine the slogan “Don’t second-dress yourself” or the store name “Hot off the Dresses.” Entertaining, right? If you continue exploring, you can find dozens of idioms like these.

Method 2: Ambiguate

PhraseWorthy can work with more than just idioms, though. Check out the next tab, “Ambiguate.”

The “Ambiguate” tab takes advantage of puns naturally built into words. Look at the first two examples. You could use these formulas to make the slogan “When you wanna dress in a hurry.” (This doubles as “When you want to dress in a hurry” and “When you want a dress in a hurry.”)

Method 3: Wordify

What does “wordify” mean? It’s a term that PhraseWorthy uses to describe the process of combining two words to make a new one. Click on the last tab on the left and you’ll see what we mean.

Look at all of those words! Some especially catchy ones are “Dresstination,” “Dresspassing,” and “Dresstiny.”

 

And there you have it! Three easy ways to get you started finding clever wordplay. Let’s take a look at some of the results we came up with using PhraseWorthy:

• “Don’t second-dress yourself”
• “Hot off the dresses”
• “When you wanna dress in a hurry”
• “Dresstination”
• “Dresspassing”
• “Dresstiny”

Get started with your own wordplay today at PhraseWorthy.com!