FLIT (Part One)
Have you ever used the word “Flit"?
That depends on the generation you belong to.
If you were around in the 20s, 40s, 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s and 90s, you have probably heard and used it.
Your using it is not my headache but how you use it. The meaning it holds for you invariably informs your use of it.
Flit is the name of a popular early 20th century insecticide created by Dr. Franklin C. Nelson. It was officially unveiled in 1923.
The company in charge of its production was New Jersey’s Standard Oil Company which later changed its name to ExxonMobil.
The product then contained DDT (dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane), a substance popular for its environmental and insecticidal efficacy. It was used to combat typhus and malaria during the Second World War.
It was also used in the agricultural industry as the number one destroyer of arthropods that posed great threats to plants and seeds. Paul Hermann Muller, a Swiss chemist, discovered the potency of DDT in 1939 and bagged a Nobel Prize in Medicine for this discovery in the year 1948.
However, the publication of Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring burst the bubble of DDT use as the book exposed its harmful environmental effects. DDT was harmful to the natural world and could cause cancer.
This revelation led to the 1972 ban on DDT use, especially in the U.S agricultural sector.
The ban was said to be responsible for the preservation of the bald eagle – U.S. national bird. The production of the first brand of Flit stopped.
The brand name “Flit” was adopted later by another insecticide product. The marketer then was Clarke Mosquito Control.
Stanco Incorporated, a subsidiary of Jersey Standard became its marketer in 1928. Flit was prominent in the public sphere again. Thanks to effective publicity made possible by the new marketer.
...
To be continued.
🎉👏💕🥂🌹💯🍉🍚
If anyone ever asked you who wrote this, tell them it’s Joshua Ìdòwú Omidire, a poet, language enthusiast, logophile, headitor, ghostwriter, movie critic, book reviewer, publisher, and digital media strategist.
And with him at Famecliff Digital PRO is a team of content gurus waiting to solve all your writing, editing, publishing, and branding puzzles.
#flit #word #language #brand
Love this perspective, Joel Marino. Thank you Reilly Capps for sharing your story! I think of you every time I pass by the doughnut shop where we met.