Wordsmiths, please help!

[Debbi]

I've been working on an article today and my brain is so fried I can't think of a word that means "memorableness". I want to say that someting (the title of a song for example) has the characteristic of being memorable, but in a noun form. Rememberability also comes to mind but neither of those are real words, are they?

Salience? but seems more like suitability than memorableness, ugh. It's to go in a list like: When creating a song title, consider tone, genre, clarity, and "memorableness".

Suggestions? I'll probably end up re-writing the sentence completely but I wonder if there is such a word!

Debbi

[Celeste Stewart]

Catchiness?

[Debbi]

hmm, that is what I had first. I'm not sure why I discarded it....

[Celeste Stewart]

Impact, meaning? Implication, connotation?

ability to make an impression?

ring?

[hairyoctopus]

"and how memorable it is"?

[Celeste Stewart]

memorability?

[nichewriter]

recall? (n. remembrance of what has been learned or experienced)

[Lysis]

I like what one guy said to me once - you have created an indelible imprint in my mind.

Man, he was gooooood. What a lady's man. I know this doesn't help, but dayum that is such a romantic way to say "I'll remember you!"

[Debbi]

Thanks, everyone! Such great suggestions I'm ruminatin' on it.

[ScottRC]

Debbi - Dictionary.com lists memorability as a word. Google Toolbar apparently recognizes it too; I don't get the squiggly line under it when I type it.

Nevertheless, I vote for catchiness (although Google squiggles under it, for some reason). The alliteration with "clarity" will make the list flow nicely. For me, the word has a slightly shallower connotation than memorability - maybe because I associate "catchiness" with commercial jingles and show tunes. But it's synonymous with memorability and I think is actually catchier. You can bring deeper development to the idea later in the article.

If you want to make Lysis melt, though, you could use "indelibility." Google's squiggling, but screw Google - Dictionary.com approves.

[Debbi]

Word 2007 doesn't like "memorability". Not that I care that much about Word 2007's feelings but I do care whether Ed likes it or not

This is a business article so "catchiness" (even though I am an avid advocate of alliteration!) seems too informal. I kind of like "imprint" which is sort of like "branding" which is related to being memorable, but to go with the other things in the series, it would have to be "inprintability" which sounds silly. Ugh, I hate it when I get all hung up on finding the perfect word. The reader will probably just race right over it in her mad dash to look at the examples. I am obsessed though; songwriting and poetry depend so much on just the right word I get fixated.

I'm giving up for the night. Off to marinate my mind in some meaningless media muck (watch TV, y'aknow?)

[ScottRC]

My Spider sense tells me you're over-thinking this and that your first instinct - catchiness - was the right one.

What kind of "business" is this business article for? One of my closest friends is a Chief Marketing Officer and I can't imagine him being put off by the "informality" of a word like "catchiness." It's direct and to the point, which is what business writing should be. I think more and more businesses (thank God) are moving away from empty but formal-sounding words like "leveraging," "paradigm," etc.

I would recommend clarity over formality any day, and you can't get much clearer than "catchiness." (How's that for alliteration?)

[Celeste Stewart]

I like memorability and catchiness. Memorability is a noun defined by Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary as "the quality or state of being easy to remember or worth remembering."

[canywriter]

I would go with niche - recall value?

Cany

[grouchy]

Unforgettable? Lingering?

p.s. I realize those aren't nouns but sometimes when I get all jammed up for a word I just change the sentence structure.