Would you eat a Sea Kitten? How about a Colin? Maybe a Slimefish?

If you ever had doubts about the power of language and words, your suspicions were confirmed by eight years of black-is-white, up-is-down, nothing-is-called-what-it-really-is George I-Can't-Say-One-Cogent-Sentence Bush.

You know the gig: a plan to allow clear-cutting of trees was called a "healthy forest" initiative.
Allowing more pollution into the air was described as a "clear skies" plan.
A law aimed at keeping credit card holders enslaved to their banks was called a "consumer protection" act.
The estate tax on wealthy families was called a "death tax."
Anti-abortion laws were described as "pro-life."

The list of these NewSpeak languistic tricks would require a separate blog.

Well, George Orwell and George Bush weren't the only ones noticing how the power of "naming" things can affect how people react to them. Seafood marketers have been doing it for years.

When Alaska's famous Kodiak King Crab stocks crashed from over-exploitation and the entire fishery was put on a long-term moratorium, permission was sought to rename a different crab stock, Red Crab. as "King Crab," even though Red Crab and King Crab aren't anything alike except that they both grow to bigger sizes than their exoskeleton brothers.

Similarly, "Snow Crab" sell much better using pure-white imagery than as "Opilio" which, to some folks, sounded oddly like a character from Hamlet.

"Pacific Bottom Slimehead" is another product you probably wouldn't buy by that name.
You probably prefer the name New Zealand marketers adopted: "Orange Roughy."

And so it goes . . . .

It should come as no surprise, then, that the British supermarket chain, Sainbury's, will not longer sell Pollock as, well, "Pollock."

After researching the reason behind lagging sales of the whitefish, it was discovered many shoppers were simply too embarrassed to utter the word which, to many British ears, sounded uncomfortably similar to the slang term "bollock," -- which means "balls" (and we're not talking sports equipment items here.)

Henceforth, Pollock will be marketed as "Colin" at Sainsbury's, with the pronunciation of coe-LAN. ( . . . and no relation to other Colins you may know, like Colin Powell, Colin Farrell or Colin Firth.)

coe-LAN. Does that sound gay or what?
You know, like calling Target by the gay pronunciation: tar-ZGHAY

No word from the estate of Jackson Pollock if the family is offended in any way by this rebranding effort.

Not to be outdone, the animal-rights group, PETA (People for the Eating of Tasty An... no, wait, that's a different group ... never mind... ) has launched a new campaign to dissuade people from eating fish.

Their angle is simple enough.

You'd never dream of eating your own dog, right?
Or your neighbor's cat?
PETA figures this approach will work on seafood.
They've started a campaign to call all fish by the term "Sea Kittens" (and I swear, I'm NOT making this up.)
You wouldn't eat a kitty cat caught at sea, would you?

The campaign comes replete with special images aimed at children, who especially love their pets -- most especially, I imagine, little girls who just love their Calicos.

So there you have it.
Sea Kittens, Colin, Roughy and Snow.
All aimed at getting you to eat -- or not -- a seafood of your choice . . .
. . . as long as it isn't called what it really is.

George Orwell would be so proud.