drivurself: omg!

Detroit News, April 19, 1931. The concept of renting a car without a chauffeur seems pretty intuitive to wised-up moderns like ourselves, but there was a time when the notion seemed weird and maybe a bit futuristic. Thus, pioneers in this field coined a pleasingly streamlined neologism for the service they offered: “drivurself.” Sadly, it didn’t catch on, and instead joined Bean Hole brand beans in the crowded graveyard of dead commercial speech. That’s sad, and plainly detracts from the gaeity of nations. But in this age of ye Blackberry and ye Twitter and other thumb-based engines of communication, are we not poised to reclaim and reactivate this moribund, pseudo-Esperanto portmanteau? Let’s all text it together: “drivurself.”