Toy Industry Jargon

Every industry has its own jargon. When businesses communicate, they often intersperse acronyms and words inherent to their specific industry. Most likely, an industry's jargon may be so limited in use that the words do not appear in an authoritative language reference like the Merriam-Webster Dictionary.

In The Toy and Game Inventor's Handbook, we included a glossary of 475 words that we felt were common and basic to the toy industry. Since we are in a "fun" business, we took the liberty to write definitions more playful and whimsical than those that would meet the stringent standards of dictionary editors. Here are several examples of industry jargon. Our definitions are in italics:

Dog: (with all respect to the ASPCA and my beloved 16 year old Tibetan Terrier, Denver, who is one sweet dog)
A product that's dead at retail

Lawyers: (guardians of the industry)
The only people who consistently make money and turn a profit

Yawn: (a bad omen signaled by the viewer during an inventor's pitch)
A boring product idea 

I recently came up with a new word, "inventortainment". To me the word characterizes inventor pitch time in today's world now that showing a new idea is often broadcast to marketers/backers on video screens versus former confidential one-on-one private meetings between inventors and company representatives.

Inventortainment is not yet part of the toy industry jargon. But someday, if the word gains widespread  "toyspeak", it may even reach a place in those authoritative consumer dictionaries. After all, every year, Merriam-Webster adds hundreds of newly minted words and acronyms that have gained popular usage in the English language.

So if you help to "jargonize" my word around the toy business, it may pass the high standards of dictionary editors. Here is the full definition: inventortainment: (n) an inventor's pitch effort of an innovative concept to marketers or backers in hopes of gaining a licensing agreement or the financial support to commercially develop the proprietary idea.

A sincere "thank you" if you add my new word to your jargon.