Xeglyze, Zepbound, Qsymia, Xolair, Wegovy
Words your 4-year-old nephew blurts out while playing Scrabble?
Names of ancient elves from a forgotten chapter of Tolkien?
The secret language you and your best friend invented in 4th grade?
Nope. They’re drug names. And I finally know why they sound completely ridiculous.
The Origin Story
When Eminem released Infinite in 1996, the country experienced an unexpected surge: terrible white rappers. Fortunately for America’s collective eardrums, most of them failed to get their “jams” on the radio. But one particularly resourceful rapper—Chip McChiperson—had a brilliant idea.
The Idea: Unionize
The bad-white-rapper population was deep, but more importantly, they were connected. And by connected, I mean they all lived in their parents’ basements, and those parents often had respectable jobs—some even attorneys.
It didn’t take long before these parents banded together to form the United Coalition of Anglo American Lyricists (UCAAL). Because of phonetics—and because this group couldn’t resist a pun—it quickly became known as “You Call.”
Most of the rights granted to UCAAL were completely unnecessary, including:
- If a Bingo game at the local rec center lasts longer than 4 hours, a member of UCAAL must be offered the chance to perform.
- Any grand opening of a Peruvian restaurant must feature a UCAAL member at the ribbon-cutting ceremony.
- All movies set in the year 2086 must include a UCAAL member as an extra. (If the movie spans 2086–2088, that extra must be killed off.)
- Eminem’s birthday would become a nationally recognized holiday—but only for the exact minute of his birth, not the whole day.
- If aliens ever communicate via crop circles, UCAAL members have first rights to respond with crop-circle “lyrics” of their own.
But there was one union right that changed everything.
Jingles
Because consumers couldn’t legally be forced to buy awful rap CDs, UCAAL needed another outlet for their “lyrical prowess.” Enter Chip’s mom—one of the union’s attorneys—who just so happened to have Pfizer as a major client.
In an act of bureaucratic stealth, she managed to slip a clause into the UCAAL agreement:
All new prescription drugs must be accompanied by a jingle written by a UCAAL member.
No one predicted the tidal wave of pharmaceuticals that would soon flood the market—expensive, questionably necessary medications advertised with side effects often worse than the ailment itself.
A nightmare for viewers.
A goldmine for terrible white rappers.
The Results
Unlike good rappers, UCAAL members lacked the vocabulary, creativity, and basic linguistic instincts needed to produce coherent lyrics. Their inability to rhyme or use real English led to one of the strangest outcomes of all:
Drug names that make absolutely zero sense.
Here are a few recreations (because copyright laws prevent the use of actual jingles):
Scratchy head
Got those little bugs around
Need quick relief
So I take Stegdowdamound
OR
Pants are getting snug
Can’t look in the mirror
Help is on the way
Take a handful of Vernirror
OR
Not on top of a piggie’s roof
These shingles are much more severe
Stop the redness now
With Quakensmear
So Next Time…
When your beloved Giants blow a 20-point lead in the 4th quarter and the two-minute warning cuts to commercial, don’t use it as a bathroom break.
Instead, take a moment to appreciate just how spectacularly awful UCAAL lyrics must be—bad enough to twist the English language into the drug names we hear today.