To demonstrate the power of the word, I offer a list of old products, whose performance in the marketplace improved dramatically with a new name. Identify the current, and add to the list:

alligator pear - tinman
angler fish
blood sausage
dolphin fish
estate tax - neveu, tinman
gooseberry - neveu
horse mackerel
intestines - tinman (chitlins v. tripe)
Patagonian toothfish
rapeseed oil - tinman, wordnerd
snail - neveu
spiny dogfish
thymus - neveu

and...

faggots - Richard English
Mountain oysters - tinman

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Robert Arvanitis,

How about
death tax : estate tax
kiwi : gooseberry (I thought it was chinese gooseberry).
escargot : snail
sweatbread : thymus

Do you think that the English meat dish, faggots, would sell better in the USA were it do be called "minced offal"?

Do you think that the English meat dish, faggots, would sell better in the USA were it do be called "minced offal"?

Probably. Since fewer people would think they knew what offal meant than thought they knew what "faggots" meant. (My father who spent most of the Second World War in the UK, used to always call cigarettes fags much to my chagrin as an American teenager.) I'm sure if they called it something like McNuggets™ folks would gobble it up, even across the Pond. Though, now that I think of it, minced is suspect, too, and offal might be confused with awful. How about McHaggis™?

alligator pear - avocado
estate tax - inheritance tax
gooseberry - Ribes spp. (probably not what you had in mind)
intestines - chitlins (chitterlings)
rapeseed oil - canola oil
thymus - thyme, Thymus spp. (again, probably not what you intended)

"Rocky Mountain oysters" and other terms refers to the testicles of castrated animals.

Tinman

Excellent.

Marketing euphemisms are red meat to the Wordcraft crowd -- identified and extended.

The original list has been noted accordingly.

When a product comes in various sizes, they can be labeled "small, medium, and large" -- but somehow I doubt that condom manufacturers would ever use those designations.

Likewise, we are fortunate the advertising geniuses (genii?) who used jumbo, colossal and mammoth restricted themselves to olives.

Quote: "I offer a list of old products, whose performance in the marketplace improved dramatically with a new name."
Quote: rapeseed oil = canola oil

'Canola' stands for Canada oil, low acid. I believe it was never marketed as "rapeseed" because the company that developed it knew that it wouldn't sell in that name. Accordingly, they invented the name "Canola".

Here are a few more for the list of "products that do better with more appetizing names":

A chocolate soda, without the soda water
Leftover meat
Excess pork shoulder the manufacturer is trying to dispose of
A chocolate cake whose baker forgot to add baking powder
Soap mis-made by leaving the mixing machine on too long

Thanks to wordnerd for another marketing ploy unmasked! The original list is updated.

Canola is a form of the infelicitously-named rapeseed, lower in erucic acid and hence edible.