This is the allusionist in which I, Helen Zoltzman, inflate language, then tie it into the shape of a poodle.

Coming up in today's show, What's in a Name, extensive research and development for a start?

Plus, allusionist origin story to warm up is some word history.

Here's the etymology of a word for which I feel, and this are all revulsion,

but I'll be using it several times in the course of this episode, so I have to deal with that.

Trend. When I was growing up, Trendy was one of the most cringe-inducing words outside of the ones used in biology class.

It's been retooled in recent years as on trend, but I see you trendy hiding in a new jacket.

Granted, Trendy, coined in 1962, is currently not on trend, but several other forms of the word are.

And I've been trying, and so far failing, to trace the past few years' developments in the use of trend and trending to insinuate a tidal online popularity.

That sense may not have been invented by Twitter when it added the Trending Topics feature in April 2009, but I think that certainly accelerated it.

Going back in time, there are a few meanings of trend. It's an obscure English word for clean wool.

It's a part of a ship's anchor, as well as another nautical term for the angle made by the direction of the anchor line and the ship's keel,

which is probably where, as of the late 19th century, trend began to mean more generally the direction something was going.

But before that, it was a geographical term. The curvature of mountains and hills and earlier of rivers and coastlines,

because trend is recorded in the 1590s, as meaning the direction in which rivers ran and bent.

It came from the Old English trender to roll around or revolve, which shares an ancient route with the Old English word trender that meant a round lump or ball.

So think about that. Next time someone says something like, crop tops are so on trend, just balls. On with the show.

In 1994, Jeff Bezos founded a book retail company named Kadabra, as in Abra Kadabra, but his lawyer misheard it as Kadabra.

So instead, Bezos opted to call it Amazon. It's the world's biggest river by volume, matching Bezos' ambitions for the company,

and back then, in 1995, lists of websites were often alphabetical, so starting with an A was cunning, and it was not likely to be mistaken for a dead body,

which is a useful criterion when naming a company, amongst others.

The three golden rules of naming are, it has to be memorable, it has to be pronounceable, and it has to be legally available.

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