Oh, nano, nano, Apple: 'Renanoed'?
It doesn't have a hyphen. It isn't in your dictionary. And it appears to be upsetting some people. Welcome to "renanoed."
The problem when you become a stadium band is that everything seems to be so marketed that the fans don't come to commune with you personally, as much as they come to watch your new movie.
This is Apple's problem. It used to have U2 in its ads. Now it is U2. Its fanboys are older and its myth is a little shakier. Its frontman is now a politician.
It's hard, then, for the people who do Apple's ads. There doesn't seem as much true direction. They're hearing far more voices than they used to. The client just isn't the same anymore.
So, as today's annual general meeting -- um, I mean iPhone 5 launch -- is but tinnitus in the faithful's ears, they turn their eyes to Apple's Web site, in search of, oh, perhaps some original material. Or maybe an old live album.
When they go to the page for the new iPod Nano, they are confronted with sloganeering.
For there beneath the proud brand name is the phrase: "Completely renanoed."
Some may find the word "renanoed" as painful as they found the word "Resolutionary," which still adorns the page for the new iPad.
Some, though, have found their emotions have been torn from their moorings and are ululating at the moon.
The seminal idealists at Gizmodo, for example, can probably be heard on Mars with their headline: "This Is Officially the Dumbest Slogan Apple Has Ever Come Up With."
See CNET's full coverage of Apple's iPhone 5 event
Indeed, the Gizmodo post ends with a certain emphasis. For the word "dumb" is printed 25 times in succession.
I confess to owning an iPod Nano. It was bought for me by a woman who was trying to inculcate her way into my humor (or to merely remind me how small she was). It is a very pleasant, simple little thing. (Um, no, she wasn't quite that.)
Does it require such a complex, made-up word? Perhaps not.
However, I think there's a reason why Apple's advisers have begun to come up with these words of invention: there aren't any real ones left.
Apple has for so long gushed about novelty, magic, revolution, excitement, greatness, beauty, and never-before-ism that the pages of the writers' thesauruses have become useful only for wrapping fish and chips.
You have to be prepared for more.
When the new iPad Mini rolls up, it will be "minimetastic." It will be "miniaturistic." It will be "shrinkolutionary." It will be presented by a four-foot version of Padma Lakshmi.
Sometimes, there really are no words for things anymore. It's quite magicalicious.
