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The Corporate Lame Name Game
daniel-san writes "I've always wondered where names like Lucent, Aptiva, Infiniti, Agilent, Aquent, Naviant get invented. Not just pertaining to e-commerce companies, the article at Salon describes some of the silliness and the willingness to pay for these names. With companies like NameLab, NameBase, Name/It, NameTrade, Namestormers and TrueNames behind the scenes, I now understand the source of my comedic relief (and sometimes utter horror.)
" What are your choices for lamest names for companies or products?
Enough said. But seriously, how can anyone think this is a good name for a product. Its not even a name, but a description, and besides how can something be powered by itself?
/. being renamed /. powered. Granted, its a little recursive, but its mostly dumb.
This would be like
We are agents of the free
At my previous job, we were bought out by a bigger company who thought they could do the ISP business. In the process of "finding" their name, they hired some outfit from California (IIRC), which spent weeks and weeks discovering *the* name that would revolutionize the ISP business. The contractor met with the companies representatives and suggested... Syndic (and the slogan was "The biggest thing on the Internet"). Yes, the only ISP name that could double as a pr0n site. :-D
Needless to say, they said *thank you* and went somewhere else.
Without you I'm one step closer to happiness without violence.
I always believe that companies that are named after people, usually their founders, have the lamest names. However, not all the names are like that. A name like Dell for example sure is a good and successful one.
... is what English majors do after they finish college.
I read this story a couple of days ago, much to my amusement.
Well, I worked for MacTemps (now Aquent, *shudder*) back in the spring, and when I got the new corporate brochure with the new name and logo, my first reaction was "What the #&$@* does "Aquent" mean!!??"
The USAir -> USAirways change strikes me as lame to the extreme. How much money did that take? Oy.
Note that not all the ideas these guys come up with are lame: PowerBook is brilliant, and I really like the name Lucent. It's just after the inital blast of smarts comes the followers: Livent, Aquent, etc.
As for my choices of lame-ass product names, any new car of the past decade pretty much qualifies! Tercel, etc.
Pope
It doesn't mean much now, it's built for the future.
Aptiva
Aeron (Cool Chair though)
Solara
Acura
Proliant (Nice Servers though for the most part)
InDesign
NetWare (I really don't like the name of Novell NetWare)
IntraNetware
Groupwise
RAV4
Integra
IROC-Z (I know it's named after a race...still...bad name)
Those are just some of the names I hate...I'm hungry...can't think of more.
You either have to make up a word, pull something out of another language or Norse Mythology, buy it from someone else for the price of a small country, or choose to go for a meaningless acronym.
Ask the people at BZET, they'll tell you
-----BEGIN GEEK CODE BLOCK----- Version: 3.1 GCS/M/Sd?s-:a---->?c++UL+++P++++L++++ E+++W+++N+K-w---M-PSY+t+5?XtvbDI++
I remember when I first heard the name Pentium, I though fuck, why not just call it 586. To me, Pentium seemed really silly at the, but I don't think anyone can seriously claim that Intel went wrong with that choice.. I had similar feeling with the name Athlon, but it too has grown on me. Itanium? I still don't like it very much, but I expect that it will start to sound better as more people use it, and everyone will totally forget the name Merced in a year.
Well, if they had it to do over again, UNIX isn't such a great name. I mean it looks like an acronym, and not too many people apprecite the pun on the name of a 30 year old operating system.
I still think Xeon sucks too as a name, but what do I know?
DrLunch.com The site that tells you what's for lunch!
How about stupid logos? Let's not forget Lucent's coffee-mug-stain-on-a-napkin logo :)
I think that was the butt of a Dilbert joke once too.
Finkployd
Yes, now I remember the name I hold with the most disgust:
Clarica.
Take a big guess what they are.
They used to be The Mutual Group.
Take a guess what THEY do.
This is the worst example of "rebranding" since Silicon Graphics changed to SGI. At least SGI kept consistent.
"Clarica" means jack-shit.
At least with a name like "The Mutual Group" you could expect them to be related to finance.
Now they sound the name of a crappy subcompact.
Pope
It doesn't mean much now, it's built for the future.
quixtar: 69 points on a triple word score (forgoing any double letter scores, of course) plus 50 for using all 7 letters. That's my kind of word!
;)
funny, offtopic, what's the difference?
The Good Reverend
last time I was in Seattle someone told me how Starbucks got their name...much cash and hand-wringing, then someone read Moby Dick. Starbuck was the ships mate who loved coffee.
ay wah-lar
that's why they have the mermaid.
not relevent really, but at least they had brought in some literature.
On another point...any company that is an iBar or an eFoo, gets immediately filed under c for clueless IMHO
Am I the only one who gets the impression that company names of the late 90's are going to be remembered in the same light as bell bottoms and platform shoes?
Of course, this coming from a guy who calls himself Effugas and runs a website named DoxPara Research...Look mah! Mid-Name Capitalization, the Almighty X, and *Gasp* RESEARCH!
;-)
Yours Truly,
Dan Kaminsky
DoxPara Research
http:///www.doxpara.com
I mean, why would someone type in 'Amazon' into their web browser? To search for 'sexy amazon babes', of course.
Amazon.com obviously grew into the commercial giant they are today solely because they engineered their name to grab the most 'net pr0n boys possible without offending the others. ;)
You know what to do with the HELLO. ...
Help create an open-source world
I know a gentleman who founded a small electronics engineering company. He sold it and made himself rather well-to-do. The company's name was something like "Applied Electronics, Inc." or some such. Something bland, but descriptive of what they did. When the company was sold, they hired a naming consultant to rename the company. It is now known as "Zetaco." This acquantance of mine didn't like that much. He's a rather literally minded gentleman (as electrical engineers often are) and he still occasionally asks the rhetorical question, "Just what the hell is a 'Zetaco?'"
Of course, the reason for all the goofy names is to try to come up with something than can be trademarked and hasn't been used before. Its impossible to search every state for every trademark, so you don't bother with real words -- any useful real word has probably been used. Hence things as goofy as "Athlon" and, let's face it, "Pentium."
Pentium III? Fiveium three?
With Celeron and then later, Itanium...
What the hell is itanium? almost itanium??? It just does not convey any meaning in the world to me...
Speaking of Jesus Christ, I'm not trying to start any flamewar here, but I always smirk whenever I see the posters on campus advertising a meeting of "Campus Crusade for Christ". Now, speaking personally here, if I were trying to get people to join a Christian group, the last thing I'd want to bring to mind is the Crusades.
:)
Well, maybe not the last thing, but it's only marginally better than "Campus Inquisition for Christ"
---
When in danger or in doubt, run in circles, scream and shout. --Robert A. Heinlein
About 10 years ago Enron Corporation, which was then called Houston Natural Gas (I believe) paid a bunch of bucks for a new name. The name-guru came up with Enteron. Unfortunately, as they were about to go public with the new moniker they discovered that enteron means alimentary canal! But after spending all that money they had to make do, so they shortened it to Enron.
GeForce 256 is the lamest product name. I pronounce it like Guh Force (like gefilte) because "Gee Force" is lame. GeForce is a lame way to spell it, and the 256 is not even relevant to the product in any meaningful way. Very nice product though.
... is to blame for a lot of these names. If you plan on doing business worldwide, your name needs to be pronounceable by people with many different native languages, and needs to lack bad connotations in those languages.
For example, Federal Express officially changed its name to FedEx in part because people in many countries had trouble pronouncing Federal.
So we get the worst of decision by committee -- only names that have no chance of offending or confusing any one among the world's 6 billion people will survive.
I remember when I first heard the name Pentium, I though fuck, why not just call it 586.
It got called "Pentium" because Intel wanted to trademark the name of their chip, and you can't trademark a number -- 3rd party competitiors could have made chips called "Ultra 586" or something (which is just what happened anyway with Cyrix). By picking an actual name for the chip, Intel was able to have brand-name protection.
(ob-hypothetical company name suggestions:)
Want to use these names for your company or product? I'll give you a discount
You know, the one with the ant commercials and red blocks that make you think it's a Dodge commercial, but the name that sounds like a Ford minivan.
Of course, they have that loopy logo that looks like a Meta key on an Apple, and of course the obvious similarities to the name of a Microsoft product or fifteen...
What is Winstar, anyway?
--
E2 IN2 IE?
You could just picture the writer trying to keep a straight face when he interviewed all these ultraserious name-gurus. My favorite quote:
"But if it's your own brand, how can you possibly be objective? I mean, would you name your own baby?" Redhill thinks for a minute, then backpedals. "I mean, of course you would name your own baby."
That cracks me up.
Someone should write some perl scripts to scan the dictionary and randomly chop words together. Call it GNUName or something; hell, that's probably already trademarked.
Communication is only possible between equals
was the monkeying about that SGI did when they made a big deal about their search for a new name, and changed to ... SGI
-Crutcher
-- Crutcher --
#include <disclaimer.h>
Robin "roblimo" Miller
Proprietor & Driver,
Robin's Limousine
Elkridge MD USA
http://way.nu/limo
I hate names that have punctuation (like exclamation points, e.g., SomeExcitingCompany!) or are spelled incorrectly on purpose (Kool Aid).
It's 10 PM. Do you know if you're un-American?
... that the name companies have some of the stupidest names around? Name/It? Namestormers?!?
/.ers, I think the names they sell are actually pretty clever...
It's funny, because unlike many
MSK
One name immediately comes to mind. Itanium. I guess they wanted to recapture the glory of the Pentium name. They failed. It just doesn't have the same...oh, I don't know, it just sucks.
----------------
"Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds." - Albert Einstein
Co-founder and designer at Music Nearby: http://musicnearby.com
But mostly laughed. This article reads like a chapter out of a Douglas Adams novel. Therein lies the sorrow, as this isn't fiction where things are larger than life itself and words are frequently discovered that didn't exist before. No, this is the state of corporate America, further alienating itself from the common man by paying focus groups and consultants to create a fiction that will be their nameplate - thier face to the world. Sad indeed. kristau
Related, the Vic-20 was a stupid name, but for different reasons.. They released it under a different name in Germany, becouse apperently Vic is a cuss in German.. ;-P
-- I'm the root of all that's evil, but you can call me cookie..
Nova means new star. I think Nova means new star in Latin too. But of course, they don't speak Latin in Latin America anymore, they speak Spanish. I think that nova means star in Spanish.
So what's with this urban legend about No va?
Patrick "Funny, he doesn't *look* Latin" Draper
If tits were wings it'd be flying around.
Microsoft is a pretty pathetic word. It's just that nowadays it's SO common, that it sounds just as normal and just as "english" as the workd "the". I guess that's what millions of dollars worth of branding does for you.
:) and "soft" from software? So really, their name is a silly shortening of "Microcomputer Software" or at least that's my take. Even if it wasn't shortened, it would still sound weird by current conventions. The last time I saw the term "microcomputer" was in a Lisp programming manual from the mid/late 80s.
Think about it. "Micro", I guess from "microcomputers" (which they aren't called anymore
But again - it doesn't sound strange really since it's so common in the language. But I guess you'll find out that if you say a word over and over, and don't focus on its meaning but rather just the *sound* of it, anything starts sounding very strange. Try "salad" which has absolutely no composite parts that I can see.
-- Truth goes out the door when rumor comes innuendo. -- Groucho Marx
So here you have all these naming firms. Apparently all the good (English) words have been taken already. Their task, as they see it, is to simply merge existing words (note how everyone seems to think of Greek and Latin as the penultimate source of style -- I guess English or Italian or Russian or Chinese or Swahili isn't established well enough to be allowed in corporate naming circles). It doesn't matter whether or not the client likes the new word or if the word fits the client, the word simply has to adhere to a certain set of rules and taste. Thus the end results are as ugly monstrosities, quite similar to the dominant architecture "style" in the book.
I guess I have no point to all this, it just seemed interesting. It'd be interesting to know where all these supposed rules for naming things come from. Also, if the goal is brand name recognition, a good brand name isn't going to create recognition. Only a good and seemingly omnipresent product will (though a bad brand name could damage that, I suppose). The best these names can do is offer some vague ideas of what the business's attributes may be. People fear blunders like trying to sell a car named "Nova" in a Spanish speaking country, when a name is only going to cause problems when it's very blatantly bad. I guess if it only brings to mind vague ideas then it's safe. Vagueness also suits these companies very well. God forbid they actually state what they do in their name! People might actually remember their company, and then they'd get business, which means more work for them. We certainly don't want that happening!
logan
I think the point is that the "e"ing of the word is lame. It's a buzzword thing that currently sounds OK becuase it's so ubiquitous, but in 5 years when that fad has passed, prefixing everything with "e" will make things sound really weird.
-- Truth goes out the door when rumor comes innuendo. -- Groucho Marx
Well, if you're going to one-up me and actually introduce facts into this forum, I'll have to hit my dictionary:
Spanish nova is the same as the English nova, which is an astronomical term for a star (or car) that blows up.
So, I guess a car that blows up is even worse than a car that doesn't go.
Patrick "what does Pinto mean in Spanish?" Draper
If tits were wings it'd be flying around.
BS - (They sell bathing suits.. either that or BullShit, I'm not sure)
Awful Aurthurs - (The sell food. Oh yeah, I just love my food awful. I hate that good tasting stuff)
Birthday Suits - (Not quite sure but I think you pay them to steal all your clothes.)
And the king of all time stupid business names:
Dirty Dick's Crabs - (It's a restaurant. Let me tell you seeing a biplane carrying a banner that reads "Dirty Dick has Crabs!" is very very dangerous when you are in the ocean holding a body board. A wave caught my board, it popped up and... well lets just say it hurt. Although the people that some my near lifeless body corkscrewing toward the shore thought that I was just a really good bodyboarder. hehe)
That's the worst!
I someday hope that I'll have something happen to me that is clearly my fault, that will get national media attention, that has everyone telling me to sue for "huge tracts of land", so that I can tell everyone: I'm an idiot and I'm the one who caused this to happen. My mother, father, sister, brother, nephew, uncle, government, teacher, priest, wife, mistress, daughter, son, friend, airline, restraunt, car, neighbor, etc, had nothing to do with it. I am the one to blame. I cannot sue for the land because I'm to blame.
I spilled the damn coffee on myself. I knew it was hot, but I did it anyway.
I rear ended your car, let me pay for you doctor's fees, but screw your emotional distress cause gump happens. I've got a burn on my face from the airbag, but I'm just thankful I didn't get impaled on the fschking steering column.
I'm an overweight weenie who closed the toilet lit down on my schlong (and ladies, it is a schlong!) and then sat on it, then twisted around a bit for good measure. I mean, c'mon fellows, how many of us don't know where our one eyed Jack is at all times?
My baby swallowed a penny and choked. I think I'll sue the goverment for not putting a child warning label on it. 20 years later that child is going to shoot up a post office over a 1 cent stamp increase, I just know it.
Pretty soon, people will be sueing Microsoft for charging too much for their products, even though no one forced them to buy the damn thing! So what if Dell didn't let you get a computer with something else on it, punish Dell, tell them you are buying a computer somewhere else. I don't get too upset with Honda for not having ALL the options on my Prelude that I wanted, I still bought the car. But, but, Chrylser offered that on their car, why don't you on yours?
Hey man, you can have any color car you want. As long as it is black--Henry Ford.
Damn, monopolies. I'll show him, I'll pick a white horse over his black car.
Build a toilet seat that even an idiot can use, and only an idiot will sit on it.
Well I would guess because NYNE would be pronounced "ninnie" hehe.
Ooh, sign me up for this service! That's just what I want, someone who not only doesn't give a hoot about my wishes, but is willing to tell the press so much.
Sadly, I participated in one of these "naming" focus groups once; it was when I was doing about weekly "focus groups" for a market research company that paid me about $75 for 2 hours work a week. You get into these groups, they've just handed you (or are about to hand you) a good lump of cash, and then ask you how you feel about this-or-that. Frankly, I would have dis'd all the names I heard - that was my first thought - but I wanted to get invited back so I could keep making the bucks. So, I chose the least stupid name, sounded really excited about it, told them it conjured up all these images of [insert adjective or verb here], got my $75 bucks cash, and forgot about it. Yeah, and I can't even remember what names I picked! That's how effective those focus groups are.
Eventually, this self-aggrandizing attitude will catch up with them, I hope. There's just no room in this economy for more self-aggrandizing holier-than-thou business models. Once the fame and money wears thin, this crowd will be back doing real work somewhere.
My $0.02.
-- "In order to have power, I must be taken seriously." -Mojo Jojo
They did after they changed the name.
IIRC, it translated as `Goes well'. Don't remember what it was in spanish, though...
Jedi Hacker (Apprentice) and Code Poet
censorship is a form of noise, which actively seeks to drown out content with silence - Crash Culligan
These names aren't just chosen randomly. Their parts and their meanings and the feelings associated with them are taken into careful account. Copious market research is done. So I guess the point is all these comments about how much we hate this name or that name aren't really an indicator of anything besides individual taste: they don't really matter very much. The names are not designed for us. They're designed for PHBs and airhead shoppers. And they work.
"Itanium"
"Inprise"
"TurboLinux"
"Netlojix"
"Equinix"
"SmartForce"
"Metacreations"
"Metalink"
Itanium -- what the hell is that? Can I make a boat hull out of it?
Inprise -- sounds like a combo on "internet" and "surprise", which I suppose is pretty meaningful
TurboLinux -- come on. Like they'd name it "supercharger linux" or "carburator linux" or "really slow linux" or "nitrous oxide linux"
Netlojix -- corporations have ruined my scrabble game. Now all the words I know either aren't real or or spelled wrong
Equinix -- maybe some kind of equal-opportunity gelding service for horses?
SmartForce -- you know, like "military intelligence"
Metacreations -- what the hell does that mean? I suppose paint and canvas are both metacreations, in the way this company uses that "word," but they are called "paint" and "canvas," not "metaart"
Metalink -- sheesh.
Napster-to-go says "Fill and refill your compatible MP3 player", which is a lie. It's not MP3. It's WMA with DRM.
How about Kia? They make the Sportage, Retona, Clarus, and Pregio?!?
Here's some cars that should have been introduced during the nineties:
Geo Scrotum
Geo Speculum (would compete with Ford Probe for "Car most likely to make women squeamish"
Infiniti Q45 Explosive Space Demodulator
Cadillac Coupe de Soixante-neuf
Solaris Java, a solar-powered "smart car"
Ford Excessive, an SUV bigger than the Excursion
and, of course, the Isuzu Hemos
Bravery, Kindness, Clarity, Honesty, Compassion, Generosity
...Nothing interesting here. Just move along...
What happens when companies keep merging and just add their names together? You get the longest name on the NYSE: PriceWaterhouseCoopers -- sorta old-fashioned in that they're retaining the surnames of their founders, but newfangled in not using spaces or puncuation.
-
<SIG>
"I am not trying to prove that I am right... I am only trying to find out whether." -Bertolt Brecht
<sig>Guvf vf abg n frperg zrffntr
We (Dallas) have a KFC band spin off too.
:-)
Hellified Funk Crew
Their logo is the Colonel with a pitchfork and horns.
Kinda silly, but cool, in it's own little dimented way
Jedi Hacker (Apprentice) and Code Poet
censorship is a form of noise, which actively seeks to drown out content with silence - Crash Culligan
Yes, sorta, and yeah, ok...
Athlon *does* sorta inspire thoughts of fleetness (for me, at least) - sorta that Athlete thing in the back of my mind... Athens... gods... it's all good...
GeForce 256... I've never heard anyone say the 256 out loud, only in type... I mean, really - there's no GeForce 128... and I'm one of those poor people who still thinks that G-Forces are cool - maybe I've watched too much Top Gun, and still hope to be in a plane, but if you want a 3D accelerator, don't you want it to "throw you back into your seat" (I always picture those Maxell commercials...
hmmm.... Maxell... Teac...
just my $.02...
"It's tough to be bilingual when you get hit in the head."
Daewoo... people who have no right trying to manufacture cars... they should stick to the fourth-rate TVs that they give away free with any car purchase.
Blech!
"It's tough to be bilingual when you get hit in the head."
nope
:)
How did you get a triple word score on a seven letter word that used all your pieces? The only time a seven letter word can use them all is the first word, and the first word has to be put right in the middle of the board, no triple word there. Then of course quixtar is a name not a word, but anyway..... So, nope, it can't work
(that's the problem about geek humor, it not only must be funny, but *correct* as well...)
I'm all for people making a buck in their chosen fields, but do they REALLY think that choosing a new name for a massive mega-corporation is going to make the slightest bit of difference? They could have called Lucent AssCo and it would still be a successful comnpany. They were a successful company before the name and they'll be a successful one after it. Same with HP and Agilent. Short of being offensive there's not much you cant do to name a company that's already been successful for decades.
And the guy ripping Yahoo? What is he high? Yahoo is the only internet company whos brand name is strong enough that they make money on it alone. Yahoo continues to turn a profit like most of the other iThis and eThat companies. I think maybe those Yahoo guys were onto something.
Who do these guys think they're kidding? The most successful companies of this century are almost all abbreviations, GM, IBM, GE, AT&T, all the television networks, etc. Of the ones that are left, they're usually people, Chrysler, Disney, Warner Bros. Over the last 20 years or so we have even more foolish names... Intel? Microsoft? HBO? Who in their right mind would name an entertainment company almost the same as a homeless transient? Or a submissive term like small-soft. Or name a chip company like a phone company? About the only guys who get it right were Apple, and they named it themselves on a whim.
I just dont get it.
-Rich
Really. C'mon. How much did they pay to change their name to what people already called them?
Consigned to flames of woe.
I used to work for a pharmaceutical company and name companies do a very important service. For one with a drug you need to find a name that is not too similar to other drug names -- otherwise pharmacists, doctors and patients get drugs mixed up which is a bad thing. Find new names for things is not easy given the huge number of registered products.
Besides, Aptiva is a much better name than Slashdot.
Okay, so its a lame example, but that's the first example I can think of...
"I will take the Ring," he said, "though I do not know the way."
In the electronic music world, it's not uncommon to chose weird nonsense words to name compositions. I say this is for the same reason that nonsense words are getting chosen for technology corporations and their high-tech product lines.
First some examples of electronic music names:
Names like:
Heliosphan (aphex twin)
zeiss contarex (autechre)
entresol (sun electric)
Versivo (bola)
The reason these kinds of weird names are chosen is that in both the case of electronic music and technology firms, the product is extremely abstract. Most normal language deals with relatively specific concrete terms and concepts.
These companies don't have one concrete or specific mission. Technology's moving fast, and people realize this.No company wants to name itself after a specific technology or product which could be obsolete in 5 or 10 or 20 years. So you pick names that have meanings unrelated to what you currently do or produce. AT&T doesn't see a whole bunch of business in telegraphy any more.
This leaves several options.
* Pick a word that conveys something good unrelated to your technology. Zenith. Sun. Saturn. Problems: How many appropriate words are there? Don't want to violate any trademarks..
* Use a family name. Who's family? I think a lot of technology companies NEVER were a family business, due to the ammount of capital required to get started.
* Make up some word that linguistically hints at other meanings, but has no explicit meaning of its own. Novell (novelty?) Lucent (Light?) Itanium (Titanium?) Problems: Some people say they're dumb.
* Use some acronym, ignore the original meaning.. AT&T does this now.
The electronic music names tend to evoke notions of Science, space, chemistry, & technology in general. The technology industry tries to evoke speed, dependability, luminence, and innovation. And vowels. They want you to think of vowels.
But it's the same game - Picking a word for an abstract concept which has none.
Trees can't go dancing
So do them a big favor
Pretend dancing stinks!
You can pretty much see where this thought process went...:
"We need something that conveys power and greatness!" ... Wait! We might not be able to patent it!"
"We need something that sounds like Pentium so that the idiots... ah, users will realize they are related."
"Uh... What convey's power and greatness?"
"I dunno... rock?"
"Nah... That sounds slow..."
"Rockanium!"
"... No..."
"Uh... Metal!"
"Yeah! Metal! Err... PentIron?"
"That is truly lame."
"Yeah... Wait! Remember that one ship... uh, the Titanic!"
"It sank."
"Yeah, but that's not the point! It had that one strong metal right? The one that sounds like the ship?"
"I dunno. Uh... you mean Titanium?"
"That's it! That sounds powerful and great!"
"Yeah!
"Damn! How about Itanium?"
"That sucks."
"Got a better suggestion?"
"No... Let's go with it."
After much debate, and the fact that Chrystler Benz was secretly threatening to sue over the blatant theft of their Mercedes brand in Merced, they decided to go with it.
B. Elgin
B. Elgin
"Read at your own risk; feel free to ignore."
But I'm pleased to say that when we unveiled the name last month at an all-company
meeting, a thousand employees stood up and gave the name a standing ovation
I've been thru these. Could it be they were simply relieved at getting it over with?
--
Infuriate left and right
Last year my company spent 25 million on a new logo. A couple days before the big announcement of what the logo was they told all emploiees that we won't get a bonus because we were missed the target by 10 million. Conincidence? We think not. (Managment will disagree, but stock prices few several bucks just after the anouncement)
Ask anyone around here though, the surest sign of a big lay off is a company moving to a new building, changing their name, or changing their logo. The old timers hold that as true.
It's true that "no" is one of the words for "no",
and that "va" is one of the words for "go", but,
get this, the Chevy Nova sold very, very well in Mexico.
Please see
http://www.snopes.com/errata/nova.htm
for a very thorough treatment of this nonsense.
-fb Everything not expressly forbidden is now mandatory.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
I think the true meaning of VAIO is 'Video Audio Input Output"
It would seem slightly more standard to say
AVIO for that though.
-fb Everything not expressly forbidden is now mandatory.
I spent some time trying to think of a domain name that I liked, wasn't taken, and was short. The best I could do was two out of three. Finally I decided to go with the automatically assigned hostname (g27) that was given to our server before we had a domain. It worked out great because everyone using the server already refered to the server as G27 and was used to typing it in as the hostname. It also ended up being easy to remember and unambigous (almost no one is going to type gtwentyseven.org instead of g27.org.) Best of all I fit five syllables into 3 characters.
numb
Historical perspective
I remember when Intel announced that the
fabled 586 would be called "Pentium". We (the hacker community) thought it was a dumb name at
the time, and I remember saying that everyone
would probably call it 586 anyway.
So, maybe five years from now, we will be talking
about the glory of the Itanium name.
The founder of Toyota is name Toyoda. A fortune teller told him that a name with eight brush strokes (Toyota) would be luckier than one with ten (Toyoda). He was also told that cars with names starting with C would sell better. Camry, Celica, Corolla, Cressida...Tercel?
Nissan (Datsun) was going to sell a car with the name Fairlady. The US division didn't like it so the name was changed to the production code name, 240Z.
Mazda had a van that they didn't import to the US. It would have been extremely popular with a certain group of people. The van's name was, Bongo Friendee.
Nissan came up with the name Leopard J. Ferie, but later changed it to J30.
On a slightly different plane: I always thought that Microsoft was not a particularly "macho" name (if you get my drift).
The name was also a hit among the NewCo rank and file. "It's funny, because 'Agilent' isn't even a real word," muses Redhill.
:-)
Neither is Itanium, Pentium, Athlon, etc. Names != words
Now let's play some word association based on what it sounds like:
Agilent
-- Flatulent
Pentium
-- Pentagram
Pentium Pro
-- Professional evil
Pentium ][
-- Crap v2.0
Celeron
-- Cheap vegetables
Pentium ]I[
-- 1984
Itanium
-- I think not
Athlon
-- Bicathlon
Crusoe
-- Coconuts
Inprise
-- Inbred
---
--
Internet Explorer (n): Another bug -- that is, a feature that can't be turned off -- in Windows.
Oh, sure, they're changing it to "Windows Powered" now, because it "emphasizes the integrated nature of the palmtop appliance," or some such BS.
But we all know the truth: It took the geniuses of Microsoft marketing this long before it finally dawned on them that the natural contraction of "Windows CE" is a word meaning "an expression of pain".
I read that a while ago, someone linked to it in a post. One of the funnyest things I've ever read.
:P
I registerd the name 'jamcracker' at slashdot after I read that
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
The nicknames people give products are usually much cooler than their actual names. Celery is a great name for a processor. What's even cooler is when companies actually start using the nicknames themselves. This doesn't happen very often though. Could you imagine Intel refering to their processor as the "Celery" on their web site?
"Channel 2"
The next time somebody started another channel, they had a public naming competition. Guess who won the big prize. Yeah, you guessed it: the guy who suggested
"Channel 3"
--
Fuck the system? Nah, you might catch something.
What the hell is that?
Sounds like I'm getting mugged by some Londoner:
"Oy! 'And over yer dosh, else I box yer ears"
> But after spending all that money they had to make do, so they shortened it to Enron.
Did they get a refund for the two letters they returned?
--
It's October 6th. Where's W2K? Over the horizon again, eh?
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
You agree with the post you're repling to :)
Anyway, I prefer calling the OS line-ucks, even though I always refer to Linus as Linn-us. And speaking of Linn-us, hes stated that he dosn't care how people pronouce it, so why should anyone else?
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
I believe Daimler continued doing small auto stuff (maybe custom cars?), then joined with Chrysler later...
I'm not sure about that. DaimlerChrysler was formed in 1998.
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
You do relize that people don't speak Latin in Mexco or anywhere else for that matter. They speak Spanish. Where 'Va' means go, and 'No' means no.
nova = nogo. its a direct translation.
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
The ISP had started out as Phoenix Datanet with the domain phoenix.net. Classy. Very rarely misspelled.
The company was purchased by Charter Communications to add an ISP to its portfolio of technology. The new domain name was c-com.net. Here begins the trouble. When on the phone, one would say the domain name as "cee dash com dot net" and quite often get confusion from the customer. "What? Cee dot com... uhh... what was that again?" Thankfully, legal troubles ended that domain name.
Then the company merges with Pointe Communications. The Charter name is abandoned (there is much rejoicing). The new domain name? pointecom.net. Yes, the 'e' is silent. Once again, on the phone with the customer... you can't just say "point com dot net". That would get you "pointcom.net".
My solution? Pronounce the 'e'. "point Eee com dot net - no spaces". Its a tribute to the pointy-haired bosses who come up with these naming ideas.
Getting back to the topic, I've been a regular reader of Salon for over a year, but I still hate the name Salon. It just makes me think of snooty high-society types lounging about in fur coats sipping champagne (getting their hair done?)
It also reminds me of a hilarious (though stupid) Saturday Night Live skit years ago with Dana Carvey (I think) playing a Vidal Sassoon-type, and the whole joke was that he would always pronounce it "SAHL-lonn" with a pretentious French accent instead of "sa-LON".
I STILL say Dreamcast sounds like a Fender guitar, not a game system.
(well, ok, that would be dreamcaster)
And PSX sounds better than Playstation.
Glückwünsche, haben Sie Slashdot ermordet, indem Sie zum korporativen Druck beugten und Subskriptionen einlei
It's actually not a Japanese word, just shortened forms of "Pocket" and "Monster" to make it sound Japanese.
Incidentally, in Japan the games are called "Pocket Monsters." Apparently, English is as chic to the Japanese as Japanese-sounding names are chic to Americans.
For more information, click here.
...and is, or, at least, was at one time, a Toyota model name as well.
So is Celsior, but it's called a "Lexus LS400" in North America.
The graphics chips handle 256bits of data in a cycle, also the memory bus is 256 bits, I think...
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
I don't know about Nintendo, but "Atari" translates in my Japanese dictionary as neighborhood, around, hit, success, or winning. (My guess is it's one of the last three.)
Sega isn't even Japanese; according to an old Sega Visions magazine gathering dust in my house, the company was founded in the 60's as "Service Games." The abbreviation is just the first two letters of both words. Back before TV-based video games were all the rage, they made mechanical games for bars and restaurants that you still see from time to time.
For more information, click here.
I still remember the flame a Windows95 user bestowed upon me, when I was using OS/2: OS/2 is just half an operating system. Get it? OS? Over 2? Ha ha ha! Ha! Ha!
Yeah, I didn't think it was that good either at the time.
For more information, click here.
Actualy, in China, Coca Cola is called "Cuh-Co-Cuh-La", It means "good tasting-joy" or somthing. I remember reading that they had to 'tweak' the name a bit, but They ended up with somthing good, I guess.
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
I remember when my family was considering buying a Dreamcast, my mom referred to it as a "Dream Machine." We all had a good laugh at her lack of knowledge about the name of the system, until we found that Dream Machine is the name of the alarm clock (made by Sony!) in my brother's room.
The Japanese can make things with really weird-sounding names, can't they? If you can find any, watch some Japanese Dreamcast commercials. They all end with a bunch of high-pitched-voiced schoolgirls shouting "DREAM CAST!"
For more information, click here.
But even after I found that on the package, it still sounded like the allergy medicine Conan the Barbarian uses....
When they were naming elements 104-109, they wanted to name element 106 Seaborgium, after Glen Seaborg, the guy who made the periodic table the shape it is now.
But they couldn't name an element after someone who was still alive.
So doesn't it seem kind of odd that Seaborg suddenly died (supposedly of a stroke) last year?
Maybe they decided they needed to take drastic actions so they wouldn't have to deal with an element called "unnilhexium"...
--
Win dain a lotica, en vai tu ri silota
Because, at the time it came out, there weren't that many different ones (although I hae the impresssion the various bits of AT&T using it for various internal purposes started creating different variants for their own projects fairly soon after they started getting it from Bell Labs).
(I'm not sure whether any Bell Labs person has officially said that "UNIX" was a pun on "Multics" or not.)
...except that a name that sounds very much like that was already taken (take a look at said page; it's the home page for a site that discusses an interesting operating system).
(I don't remember whether anybody from Bell Labs officially stated that "UNIX" was a pun on "Multics" or not.)
beacuse DVD Dosn't stand for Digital Versatile Disc. Infact it dosn't mean anything. Beacuse of the argument over Video and versatile, the meaning was striped. DVD dosn't stand for anything.
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
- The Probe (for people who like to tailgate?)
- The Dodge Ram (for very violent drivers?)
- The Taurus (for running red lights?)
- The Corrola (for statisticians?)
- The LeBaron (for a very small market, French noblemen)
- The Escort (for horny #@(&$'s)
Duh...Vovida, OS VoIP
Beer recipe: free! #Source
Cold pints: $2 #Product
Integrated Electronics.
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
Note that the classy European auto makers do this: Saab, Volvo, BMW, Mercedes. They know that their renowned brand names are the only names they need.
Vovida, OS VoIP
Beer recipe: free! #Source
Cold pints: $2 #Product
When I first saw it, I thought it said "Ezemia", and it reminded me of the word "enima"...
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
Then there was "InfoWhatever", and "e-Whatever", and "iWhatever", and "eWhatever", and "Whateverent"...
And Bob looked and saw that it was bad. Very very bad.
but "e.conomy"? That sounds like all the high-tech cliches run through a blender... I can just see someone trademarking it.
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Win dain a lotica, en vai tu ri silota
Flamebait, eh? The point was how the "e" in "eToys" would be outdated, and I was noting
how the "i" in "iMac" or "iBook" would one day be outdated.
Moderators, get a grip & READ the comments.
i dont display scores, and my threshhold is -1. post accordingly.
i dont display scores, and my threshhold is -1. post accordingly.
Discuss
Someone needs to get Wesley Willis to Brazil! I'm certain he would love to ride the "Ass Bus."
Interested in XFMail? New XFMail home page.
yes, corona is a real word. see corona of the sun... it's the thing that you only see at eclipses that smears out really far...
Lea
I don't think thats right, beacuse the word for 'bite' in chinese is "Yau" in the 3rd tone, or "ding" in the 4th. ( zhongwen.com ). I do remember hearing that though.
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
well, in that case, the original poster should have mentioned the extra points for new word "lancer"
One thing that pisses me off with Corolla is that the TV advertisements pronounce it 'Corole-a' with a long O, when the spelling clearly indicates otherwise. Likewise 'Harkonnen' in Dune.
-- Ed Avis ed@membled.com
Fiat have made cars called the Cinquecento and the Seicento, which just mean 500 and 600 in Italian.
-- Ed Avis ed@membled.com
There's no end to the jokes you can make with this material. Can I get a ride in it? Is it running smoothly? You gotta have it lubricated once in a while! How many people have been in it? Ever had any seamen in it?
The poor bastards who bought this car better not have a lot of smartass friends. :->
--
Fuck the system? Nah, you might catch something.