Words; motion lamp, n.

IT SOUNDS unduly cloacal. Elyse Kaye of Haggerty Enterprises, Inc complains that I wrote of "Lava World Internationalf Haggerty Enterprises' product . . . the Lavas brand motion lamp, which you referred to as a `lava lamp' . . . it is important that our product be referred to as the Lavas brand motion lamp. We realise that may seem like quite a mouthful, yet we want to ensure that in the future your publication doesn't refer to any product as a `lava lamp', not even ours."

In fact, I was quoting a splendid Lorrie Moore story. Is Ms Kaye an A.N. Wilson practical joke? No, Haggerty exists, and "lava lamp" is not in the OED (but is in OUP's Canadian dictionary). What a job, to scour the world's press for lava lamps - and get in a lathers.