Ever wondered what the Ms in M&Ms stand for? If Scotch tape was invented in Scotland? Why a cereal that contains neither grapes nor nuts is called Grape Nuts? Who thought Gap was a good name for a clothing store? From the Adidas we wear to the Volkswagens we drive, the daily lives of Americans are dominated by the manufacturers' trademarks that adorn nearly everything we own. Food, clothes, cars, household furnishings, even cell phones are all chosen by brand name. Yet many of these trademarks and product names pose mysteries. But not when Evan Morris, creator of the award-winning The Word Detective website, is on the case! In From Altoids to Zima he reveals the fascinating, often wacky stories behind 125 brand names. Organized by product categories -- food and drink; clothing; technology, toys, and assorted bright ideas; cars; and drugs and cosmetics -- the story of each product is told with Morris's trademark wit and humor, complete with sidebars that highlight brand names that have become "genericized" (aspirin); a "What Were They Thinking?" honor roll of strange and often disastrous product names (Edsel); what happens when good brand names go bad (Kool-Aid after the Jonestown mass suicide); and debunked urban legends (the combination of Pop Rocks and soda that was rumored to be lethal). Evan Morris is the author of the syndicated newspaper column (and award-winning Web site) The Word Detective (www.word-detective.com). His previous books include The Book Lover’s Guide to the Internet, The Word Detective , and the forthcoming Makin’ Whoopee . He lives in Millersport, Ohio. Morris died at age 67 after a two-year battle with cancer. Introduction What's in a name? That which we call a rose By any other name would smell as sweet. -- William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet Welcome to a typical morning in twenty-first century America: 7:00 A.M. Your clock radio blasts you awake, terminating your recurring MasterCard nightmare with a Money Store spiel pushing second mortgages. Your eyes, still blurred from sleep, can barely make out the Sony logo on the radio as you fumble for the off switch, but you dutifully launch yourself from bed and stagger toward the kitchen. You dump a few measures of Starbucks and some water from the Brita into your Krups machine, punch the button, and head for the shower. Midway between the L'Oréal shampoo and the Pantene conditioner, you remember that today is the day the jeweler promised your Rolex would be fixed, good news, since the cheap Timex you've been wearing in the interim loses five minutes a day. Even better, you remember that today is Casual Friday at the office, so once out of the shower, your mouth still tingling from the Scope mouthwash, you bypass the ranks of Brooks Brothers and Armani in your closet and opt for Dockers, your favorite Nikes, and a Gap chambray shirt. Breakfast consists of a container of Yoplait and a Pop-Tart. The drive to the office is uneventful except for the jerk in the Jeep who tailgates you most of the way there, giving you a tension headache that even two Advil, washed down at a stoplight with a gulp of Evian, can't seem to dent. Once you've squeezed your Miata between your boss's Lexus and a beat-up Bronco belonging to god-knows-who, your mood is not improved as you get to your office, switch on your iMac, and read your morning e-mail. Some clown on eBay has outbid you on that Pez dispenser collection in the middle of the night, and Discover Card has discovered that the Coach bag you bought for your sister's birthday has put you over your credit limit. The office manager wants to know who has been using the Xerox machine for Tupperware party invitations. And that weirdo in personnel is still trying to dragoon everyone into attending Dianetics workshops. You wonder whether Yahoo could help you find a new job. Lunch is Taco Bell at your desk while you work on the Lucent account, followed by Altoids to kill the taste. By five o'clock, you're running on Yoo-Hoo, Visine, and M&Ms, so on the way home you decide to reward yourself with a Domino's pizza and a six-pack of Heineken. Midnight finds you fast asleep in front of a commercial for Chia Pets -- with one hand still buried in a bag of Cheez Doodles. From the Reeboks we wear to the Volkswagens we drive, the daily lives of Americans are increasingly dominated by the manufacturers' trademarks that adorn nearly everything we own. We choose our food, our clothes, our cars, our household furnishings, even our cell phones, by brand name. So ardent is our devotion to brand names that corporate logos themselves have become wearable art and commodities in their own right; the streets of America are awash in consumers playing the role of walking billboards, clad from baseball cap to sneakers in product endorsements. A time traveler from 1950 visiting, say, Disney World today might conclude that he had wandered into a convention of people all supporting someone named Tommy Hilfige