I love word puzzles.

I stay up too late, convinced rest isn’t possible until the daily Connections drops at midnight. The loss of NPR’s word-nerd podcast Ask Me Another still stings. And if we’re being truthful; I don’t have a New York Times subscription because I’m driven to support quality journalism in an age that needs it more than ever. It’s so I can play the Spelling Bee past a ‘solid’ rating.

But my true love? Cryptic crosswords.

I adore breaking words apart and pulling them back together in weird new ways. You have to approach everything from a different angle. Cryptics scratch a real brain-itch.

They also taught me a lot about naming brands.

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Lesson #1: A little knowledge goes a long way

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There are countless mini-rules cryptics rely on. 

‘Love’ in the clue could suggest an O in your answer, as it’s zero in tennis-speak. ‘Gold’ might be a hint to include AU, the element’s chemical symbol. You’d be surprised how often Henry Ford comes up, until you catch on that the clue-setter is alluding to the Model T car, and by extension the letter T.

Knowing a little science, geography, chess, musical notation, pop culture, the writings of Freud, a smattering of German—it all helps. And it’s that exact lateral thinking that’s the go-to for any namer.

You don’t get to Nike without a passing interest in Greek mythology.

Amazon borrows from the sheer vastness of its river namesake.

And Google wouldn’t be the same if someone didn’t have ‘googol’ their math-vocab.

Read up kids.

Lesson #2: Hidden figures

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Puzzle people love to outright put the answer in the question.

They just nestle it among other words, with a few line breaks and some sneaky punctuation. So something like brainstorm can be clued as ‘bra in storm’ and you can find attentive in ‘neat tent I’ve found’.

These always give you a rush, because it feels like unlocking something. 

You can get that same ah-ha moment in a name. Plus it’s a great way to make new words (fun and distinct!) out of existing ones (annoyingly hard to own).

When a certain soda hit the market, it was touted as relief for indigestion. Another word for indigestion? Dyspepsia. And that, my friends, was how Pepsi was born.

Lego mushes together the Swedish for let’s play, ‘leg godt’, after dropping a ‘g’.

And can you find a billion-dollar company in what was once called Canvas Chef?

(…it’s Canva.)

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Lesson #3: Puns are encouraged

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Dads, drag queens, and your dear author all agree.

Puns are the best.

They’re also key to solving many cryptic clues.

The art of double definition requires a certain elegance. ‘A wicked thing’ could be a candle, aka something with a wick. You’d assume ‘flower’ would allude to a rose or tulip. But it might well be a river, if you get my flow.

They make for layered brand names as well.

There’s a social-enterprise bakery here in Sydney called The Bread and Butter Project. They sell baked goods and train refugees for the workforce. Take both meanings of ‘bread and butter’ and the name so neatly sums up what they do, and why they do it.

And say what you will about Elon Musk, but calling his tunnel construction enterprise The Boring Company creates the perfect double entendre. Also a real standout in the category of ‘hyperloop infrastructure’.

It almost makes me forgive him for renaming Twitter.

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Lesson #4: Are we having fun yet?

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Naming is a tricky thing. 

You’re summing up a brand’s whole story in the shortest possible space. Inevitably someone in the meeting decides the most innocuous word has some filthy connotation and it’s out. And nothing (nothing!) is ever available for trademark.

But we persist.

And there’s this moment, right at the start, where it’s still a game. The practicalities haven’t yet closed off the possibilities. And there’s space to play and break and make new again, just with words.

And for that, I’ve got nothing but love.

Just like 0-0 at the tennis.

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Katherine Fischer is the Verbal Identity Director at Re Australia. Her name anagrams to Freethinker’s Chai. Don’t be a stranger.