Dr. Word asks: Sponsafier???

by David [Spon] Safier

Dr. Word was thumbing through a Sports Illustrated, something he rarely does, when a word jumped out at him from a full page ad: Sponsafier.

Spon-Safier? he asked himself. What is a Spon-Safier?

The Safier name is uncommon enough, one rarely sees it in the media. The last occurrence Dr. Word recalls was in a few Sopranos episodes when a newscaster was named Manny Safier. Before that, the only reference Dr. Word remembers was sometime around 1960 when a young man named Fred Safier (no known relation) went to Harvard when he was 13. That made a bit of news. Not much, but a bit.

So, Spon-Safier? In a Toyota ad?

Reading further, Dr. Word discovered the term, which is actually an unhypenated "Sponsafier," is a Toyota PR gimmick where people submit designs for a Toyota racing car, and the winning design is put on the company's NASCAR entry.

And, to Dr. Word's disappointment, the word has no connection to the Safier surname. It refers to one who Sponifies, a gimmicky way of referring to designing the winning paint job for the Toyota Nascar entry. That makes one a Sponsafier — pronounced spon-suh-fy-er — as opposed to the surname's pronunciation, Suh-fear.

The good doctor will continue scouring the media and the internet in search of the family name. One example: David Safier, German novelist and screenwriter. No known relation.