Exitlog | Leaving Impressions

TuneUp software for iTunes promises to clean up your tracks. As the ad says, Your music collection is a mess. TuneUp fixes it. Automagically.

Whether or not the software works is not really a consideration. This is not a review. Need a verdict? Try choosing from: not sure, don’t care or could be a consideration as most people’s iTunes libraries are a mess, especially those with a little torrent help. It is the unnecessary word-smithing, or mash-up, of automatically and magic is of interest and certainly gets a nod.

Word mash-ups (or portmanteau for the literati), were popularised by Lewis Carrol in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (1865) and the sequel Through the Looking-Glass (1871). Enjoy the opening of Jabberwocky, featured in the latter, for example of his craft and invention:

‘Twas brillig, and the slithy toves, Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogoves, And the mome raths outgrabe.

Brillig might not be so well known as say chortling, from the same work, but we all know Tarmac, Blaxploitation and Wikipedia.

Advertising historically has never been one to miss an opportunity to make-up a feature or phrase for the sake of sales. Today’s mash could easily be in tomorrow’s dictionary. TuneUp is in good company with this attempt. There is a certain charm and elegance to blending the right words. Automagically might not be of the same calibre as Carrol’s work but it is fun to say – good effort.