Am I the only one here who's tired of seeing corporations inventing stupid names for their companies? For example, there's a drug and sundry store chain here in the US that calls itself, "Rite-Aid." By all rights, it should be a religious supply store. Are those high-dollar advertising people really THAT stupid? The local telephone company used to call itself "US West Communications," a name that clearly suggested location and purpose. Now they've changed their name to "Qwest." What in Hell, or Oregon, or anywhere else, is that supposed to mean? To my feeble old mind, it only means that they can't spell, and have lost all corporate identity! Your comments, please!

We're about to get the marketing dept's [depth] "all insulted", especially because they feel they have some deeper understanding of society that the "commoner" can't see, but IS looking at...

My ol'man [Olaf] was a little p'd [Pablo] when he heard the term xerox as a verb, and it meant nothing to him that it was the process of xerography [Xerox] that was being done, or the fact that because it became such a common word (I'm sure the marketing dept [depth] at Xerox was happy) he had a job for 20yrs.

Geoff, I believe you have touched on one of the faster ways in which language develops new words... not that I'm disappointed with that...

http://wordsmith.org/board/showflat.pl?Cat=&Board=wordplay&Number=13883

(I thought I would leave AEnigma attached.... "My Olaf was a little Pablo", and those "dept's" do have "depth")

Geoff, I think these names are invented so that the companies can stand out in the slew of companies that are doing exactly the same thing.

Take for example a shoe stores. There can be hundreds of shoe stores in every city, thousands in one state. If they all called themselves, say, Oregon Shoe Store ... a) how could you tell them apart? b) how dull would that be?

Everything has to do with attracting the client. Again, with shoes...say you have a store that sells specialized shoes for people who have foot problems. Customers would more likely go to a store called Tender tootsies than one called Shoes for Problem Feet.

The same applies to your Qwest example. Telecommunications companies want to appear high-tech and up-to-date. US West Communications makes the company appear dated. When wooing new clients everything from your company logo to your receptionist has to make a good first impression.

I agree that misspelled words are an annoyance however since kids see these words over and over and believe the spelling to be correct.

>I agree that misspelled words are an annoyance however since kids see these words over and over and believe the spelling to be correct.

Absolutely! How are we expected to write Toys R Us when there isn't a character for the backwards R! [back to reading about ASCII emoticon, although I'm pretty sure it isn't there ... mumble, mumble]

Absolutely! How are we expected to write Toys R Us when there isn't a character for the backwards R!

The only good thing about Toys R Us is that I can go into one of them and have at least 50% of their clerks get my name right. The downside is that they think I'm a giraffe.

The same applies to your Qwest example. Telecommunications companies want to appear high-tech and up-to-date. US West Communications makes the company appear dated. When wooing new clients everything from your company logo to your receptionist has to make a good first impression.

They do this by displaying illiteracy and obfuscation? I am not impressed in any positive way.

Dear Geoff the Giraffe,

I agree with you in principle but I must say I'm a sucker for cute coffee shop names: Witch's Brew and Java Jive are two local ones.

However, the trend toward "short-and-punchy-wins-the-race" I find annoying. Southern Bell Telephone is now BellSouth! Bank of Boston is now BankBoston! Go shout elsewhere, corporate types. I too, am not impressed.

Then there's the local convenience store chain called "E-Z Serve." I had some Brit friends visiting last year - they couldn't figure it out

Dear Geoff the Giraffe,

Dear AS,
From our previous exchanges, you know only too well how hard I'm trying to resist the urge to make a pun about sticking my neck out!

Southern Bell Telephone is now BellSouth! Bank of Boston is now BankBoston!

I also note that Bank of America has discontinued its BA logo, perhpas because it's also the acronym for "Bare A**," and have replaced it with a piece of plaid. At least the two examples you cite reflect some hint of their true identity. Bell is inexorably linked with telephones, and Bank Boston says what and where, even if it's obfuscate. Still, obfuscation in the name of corporate "cuteness" is moronic, in this curmudgeon's not very damned humble opinion!

I hate to see perfectly good names shortened.
American Telephone and Telegraph was elegant but they have just legally changed to AT&T.
OTOH, I guess QANTAS is easier to paint on the tail of an aeroplane than the full mouthful!
By the way, all you Aussies, is it true that QANTAS will give you a small discount if you know what the letters stand for, or is it just another myth or wishful thought?
Iknow! I know! waving hand madly in air to catch teacher's attention)
wow

AnnaS, I agree with you about the coffee shop names. Boutique names that use puns to refer to what they sell I also think are cute. Whenever I go somewhere English I always love seeing those.

For some reason, this NEVER happens in French. We have very basic names with no word play at all.

I guess QANTAS is easier to paint on the tail of an aeroplane than the full mouthful!

OK, WOW, let us in on the QANTAS acronym. I'm not an Ozzie, and have never been there, but I know it too. I'll start us off with "Queensland And..." Your turn!

QANTAS - flew with them last week. They bought out Ansett NZ a few months ago. I won't spoil your fun about what the name means, but tell me this:

How do you pronounce it? I mean, QUANTAS would be very easy - kwan-tas. But no "u"? A proofreader at the newspaper I used to work for insisted, in a strictly curmudgeonly way of course, on always pronouncing it "kan-tas". Used to drive his copyholders nuts. Or at least ... I think that's why they were nuts! [confused-on-reflection emoticon]

1- You can't trademark an ordinary (correctly spelled) word.
2- You want your brand to be unique, yet easily remembered, so it has to sound half-familiar, half exotic. Who will remember that "Xerox" was derived from greek xeros, dry, for being the first copying process doing away with messy liquids?
3- Corparations want to remain flexible in their expansion of business. So they don't want to be tied to a particular type of article by their brand name. Maybe this is now the unhappy fate of Xerox. Modern names of corporations avoid association with a product, either by using an acronym of their former name (BASF is an early example), or a fully "synthetic" name like e.g. Syngenta ("born" last year).

Here's a confusing one...

In the Canadian provinces of Alberta and British Columbia, the phone company is now called "TELUS" (they used to be BCTel and AGT, Alberta Government Telephones). I think they meant it to sound like "Tell us" but instead, it looks like it's an American telephone company - "Tel US". Which it isn't!

You want your brand to be unique, yet easily remembered... and Corporations want to remain flexible in their expansion of business. So they don't want to be tied to a particular type of article by their brand name.

Well, I guess that explains why General Electric's logo has been around unchanged for a century! No need for cutesy yuppie-sounding tripe. Most products use electricity, so the name has plenty of latitude. It fits your criteria well, with old-fashioned script. So much for being "modern!"

In the Canadian provinces of Alberta and British Columbia, the phone company is now called "TELUS"

Very interesting! You have a phone company named for an ancient Roman goddess of the Earth and of fertility! They left out one "l," but phonetically it's the same. Tell us if you have a population explosion among telephone users in BC and Alberta!

Well, I guess that explains why General Electric's logo has been around unchanged for a century! No need for cutesy yuppie-sounding tripe. Most products use electricity, so the name has plenty of latitude. It fits your criteria well, with old-fashioned script. So much for being "modern!"

Geoff:
I've done a tiny bit of corporate branding work for GE, it's interesting to note that most of their business now has nothing at all to do with electricity. Their wonderful logo is based on the shape of a fan's rotor blade to reflect one of their earliest products. Most of their marketing these days is to promote their financial assurance services so they never, ever refer to themselves as General Electric anymore. I'm thrilled though that they've kept their old logo intact.

OK, WOW, let us in on the QANTAS acronym. I'm not an Ozzie, and have never been there, but I know it too. I'll start us off with "Queensland And..." Your turn!
Sorry to be so long answering. Although my life seems to be mainly this board other things do intrude.

Queensland And Northern Territories Airways Service.
So there! Thought you'd caught me out? HA!
Now about that discount ... nobody knows?
wow

Mumbles heard from afar : "There she is making another post." As she shamelessly works her way toward Old Hand status!
There's an apocryphal story about brand names:
The Japanese had just designed and produced another automobile and it was set to go except for a name. The auto makers decided to call a German auto maker for a suggestion When the situation was explained the German asked when they needed an answer.
"Today!" the Japanese said.
In accented English the German said:
"That soon?"
"Thank you" said the Japanese gentleman
And so that's how Datsun go its name.
(Apologies to our German friends. It's meant as a friendly joke!)
wow

To demonstrate my remarkable command of the obvious, names like "Rite-Aid" arise from the constraints on usage of everyday names or words in a copyright.

Ok, so Sam Walton founded them ... but can anyone explain the reasoning behind Walmart for the store and Walgeen for the pharmacy-convenience stores?
wow

wow, Walgreen's came first didn't it? Maybe back then old Sam had a partner named Green.

---
As for copyrights, General and Electric are two common words. Does this mean the company's name is not copyrighted? Or was it created before this law?

--
And finally, just to annoy Geoff , here's a great example of a corporate name that does nothing to convey what it does and causes problems when you try to look up its website. BellSouth wireless and Verizon (!) wireless merged to form a company called Cingular (cf. seltic). Go figger.

wow, I'm devoting myself to the pursuit of this QANTAS discount question, and I'm coming up zeroes. In a brief scan of their website, it only took a couple of maneuvers to find the acronym decipher. So if it's that abundantly available, they might not be so amenable to the discount concept. I'll continue looking... that would give me the perfect excuse to go on an Outback camel trek. "But I got this terrific discount on an airline ticket!"

And finally, just to annoy Geoff , here's a great example of a corporate name that does nothing to convey what it does and causes problems when you try to look up its website. BellSouth wireless and Verizon (!) wireless merged to form a company called Cingular (cf. seltic). Go figger.


I heard that Bell South bought both GTE/Amertech cellular from & CellularOne(cingular). The verizon.com sight says they were GTE & Bell Atlantic.

In this area verizon (gte) & cingular (cell1) are in direct competition. I would be nice to talk with my pals with verizon service for free too.







CJ

There's an apocryphal story about brand names:
The Japanese had just designed and produced another automobile and it was set to go except for a name.

Here's one that's NOT apocryphal: Back in the late sixties Toyota produced a car for the US market they called "Sprinter." With the Japanese difficulty with "R" and "L" differentiation, it sounded as though they had a car named for a wood sliver.

I'm a little confused, but thanks for the who's who, CJ. Anyway, the name Cingular still strikes a singular sour note with me

wow, I'm devoting myself to the pursuit of this QANTAS discount question, and I'm coming up zeroes. In a brief scan of their website, it only took a couple of maneuvers to find the acronym decipher. So if it's that abundantly available, they might not be so amenable to the discount concept. I'll continue looking... that would give me the perfect excuse to go on an Outback camel trek. "But I got this terrific discount on an airline ticket!"

Okay, today I approached the Qantas information desk and, feeling like a right idiot, asked the question. Blank look, followed by a slight laugh and then eyes moving everywhere while they watered ...

I guess the answer is, as I suspected, NO!

Actually, for routes that both Qantas and Air New Zealand operate on (which is most of 'em) you can go to either website and get more or less the same prices. If one moves, the other follows, if you follow my moves.

However, I'm assured on good authority (moi) that if you are an American and you can point at New Zealand on a map or even point at the correct ocean, they'll let you onto their planes in cattle class if you pay for the ticket ... They don't believe it will significantly increase the number of US citizens flying on their planes!

Okay, today I approached the Qantas information desk and, asked the question. I guess the answer is, NO!
----------------------------------------------------
Dear Cap K,
Your abridged comment re QANTAS discount for anyone who could correctly tell the airline's name is above for those trying to follow along.
My guess is that perhaps many, many, many, years ago when QANTAS was trying to break into the international market, it MAY have been true. Lacking a really old, retired, QANTAS Old Timer we may never know.
"Ah, sweet mystery of life!"
wow

everyone is so serious about all these mergers and names--
did you hear that Xerox, to end its corporate woes is planning a merger with Wurlizter?

or that South west bell was planning a merger with Mexico Telecom?

Xerox is planning on making "reproductive organs" and the new telecom company will be called Tacobell!

(lots more where they came from, and more in the annals of the Economist!)

I suppose we are all familiar with the trade names which have entered the language as words, such as "xerox" for "photocopier", "kleenex" for "disposable tissue", "coke" for "cola-flavored soda", "kotex" for "sanitary napkin", "vaseline" for "petroleum jelly", et. al. What happens here, of course, is that a manufacturer dreams up a short, snappy name for his product. The product then becomes such a great hit that people use the trade name to denote the product, much to the chagrin of competitors, and after a while, the name goes into dictionaries as a word. What is strange, or stranger, is how manufacturers come up with these names in the first place. Some years ago the Standard Oil co. which produced gasoline under the name "Esso" (short for Standard Oil) decided its image was too old and stuffy, so they decided to change the name and came up with Exxon. There was a lot of criticism at the time because the new name meant absolutely nothing and looked funny with the 2 x's. They kept that for years and it's still around, although I don't see that it ever helped their sales. It seems marketing experts are still at it, dreaming up names which are designed mostly to catch the eye; they don't have to have any meaning whatever.

lots more where they came from

Yes, please!

>if you are an American and you can point at New Zealand on a map or even point at the correct ocean, they'll let you onto their planes in cattle class if you pay for the ticket

On his retirement in the early 1960s my grandfather went on a world trip that included the US. He found that many Americans didn't know where Australia was, but for some curious reason they had an idea of New Zealand's whereabouts, so he used to say "Oh, Australia's a small island on the west coast of NZ".

By the way, QANTAS is sometimes referred to here as "Quaint-Ass". If you don't want to fly with them, you can "Fly Ansett and Chance It".

Americans' ignorance of New Zealand
You think that's bad (so do I). I have to confess with shame that at least 40 percent of my fellow citizens could not tell you where Manitoba or Alberta are. The average American knows no more about Canada than he does about Zild or Oz and that ain't much. As to someplace like Chad, or Bhutan, they don't even know there is such a place.

>As to someplace like Chad, or Bhutan, they don't even know there is such a place.

Oh, I think they've heard enough about chad recently to wonder why you'd name a country after one.

But seriously, if what you say is true, it's a sad reflection on a tendency towards introspection that must be commonplace in the education system (e.g. geography and history teaching) and in the media, to name a couple of institutions.

I suppose we are all familiar with the trade names which have entered the language as words, such as "xerox" for "photocopier", "kleenex" for "disposable tissue", "coke" for "cola-flavored soda", etc
-------------------------------------------------------\
Dear Boby,
When you are going beddy-bye tonight, pray that the omnipresent Legal Eagles from (all) those companies are not reading the Board!
I recall that when I was working for a small weekly a story with the word coke (small c) got past a harried editor
the paper got a package from Coca Cola regarding its copyrighted names including Coke along with several legal citations upholding the company's right to the names!!
When the reporter's birthday came along guess what we bought him a case of?
wow

a sad reflection on a tendency towards introspection that must be commonplace in the education system (e.g. geography and history teaching)

Oh, it's true. The Cincinnati Enquirer recently published some history test that was given to college students and, if I remember correctly, most of them weren't able to pass it. Most couldn't even identify the decade in which the Civil War occured! History and geography are two of my favorite subjects, but most schools don't see these as fundamentally important to the educational process. My classmates were amazed that I knew on what island Napoleon was born. I can't see the students at my school scoring this poorly on a history test because I consider most of them fairly intelligent (middle class suburban school district) but I'm not sure.

Grade inflation is also definitely a problem. When 70% (I'm not sure of the actual percentage) of the students in your school are on the honor roll, there's a problem. And it doesn't seem right to me that we have students who haven't taken a single honors course in their entire 4 years in high school who are in the National Honor Society.

Some years ago the Standard Oil co. which produced gasoline
under the name "Esso"

I understand they changed just so the insects flying around their stations wouldn't be known as Esso bees.

Esso bees

Oh, Honey, I want to give you a stinging comeback for that!
Standard Oil also became Chevron, with the appropriate logo.

I never did know why Sinclair gasoline had a dinosaur logo,
but I can still "hear" that theme song that was on the radio every morning: Sinclair puts that nickel in, puts that magic(?) nickel in, only Sinclair gasoline has nickel, nickel, nickel.

>>Some years ago the Standard Oil co. which produced gasoline under the name "Esso"...

>Standard Oil also became Chevron...

for the record, in 1911 J.D. Rockerfeller's Standard Oil Trust was broken up into something like 32 small companies. the major players left standing today include Standard Oil of New Jersey (Esso/Exxon), Standard Oil of New York (Socony/Mobil), Standard Oil [California] (Chevron), Standard Oil of Ohio (Sohio, arm of BP), Standard Oil of Indiana (Amoco), Continental Oil (Conoco), and Atlantic Richfield (ARCO). Each of these could market under the Standard brand in its respective region, but when they started to challenge each other regionally, and later nationally, they had to change brand names to avoid lawsuits. in our region, the Standard name came down, and became Amoco, although the logo looked the same otherwise.

In reply to:

---

I can't see the students at my school scoring this poorly on a history test because I consider most of them fairly intelligent (middle class suburban school district) but I'm not sure.

---

Sorry, this is my King Charles the First's head. Ignorance and lack of intelligence are not the same thing.

This may or may not be an apocryphal story, but apparently after a very long and complicated explanation of some knotty technical point from one of the counsel in a trial, the judge said "I'm sorry, but I'm none the wiser", to which the lawyer replied "No my Lord, but a great deal better informed."

The students at your school may be better informed than the average, but that doesn't make them any more intelligent than people who haven't had the same quality of instruction. [/rant]

P.S. Sorry if you're feeling picked on, Jazzo.


Bingley

Bingley wrote: The students at your school may be better informed than the average, but that doesn't make them any more intelligent than people who haven't had the same quality of instruction

And conversely, students being highly intelligent does not guarantee they will be very educated or well informed. They may be intelligent but completely demotivated to study and learn, or they may be keen but getting a low standard of education. What is more, in my experience, a lower standard of education often results in a lack of motivation to be educated.

I am talking generally here, and certainly NOT picking on Jazz.


Wey-hey! I'm a newbie! How about that?

the ignorance in the US about basic geography is appalling-- when my daughter was in HS, she got a promotion at a temp job because it became evident to the manager that she knew the 50 states. She was working at a mailing house, and had to sort (outgoing) mail for postage. Sometimes, there would be domestic mail in the batches -- usually just missing a zip code. many of the workers had been "long term" temps, but still were unable to reliably recognize domestic from overseas addresses.

For myself, i "knew" New Zealand long before i knew Australia-- My family loved lamb-- and NZ frozen legs of lamb came with a "map" outlining the shape.. so I could find NZ on the globe as soon as i got to school. Idaho was one of the first states i knew as child too, from the bags of potatoes!

We had a puzzle map of the US, and i learned geography of US at a young age-- and still have childhood images of the states.. Virginia looks like a sleeping camel in my minds eye to this day!

Many of us have good reason to be unhappy with the schools. But we must remember how much new material has been added.I had things in highschool my father had in college. My kids had a bit of calculus in highschool, which I never heard of until I got into college. Add the new math, etc.,etc.A lot of new garbage crowded out some of the old solid foundation material.

To clarify this discussion, there is a difference between trademark, trade name, and copyright. Based on US law, generally,

(1) A trademark is a word, phrase or logo used to distinguish a manufacturer's or seller's product from others. It had its origin as a guarantee of genuineness (such as Paul Revere's mark on his silver works). To receive trademark protection under US federal law, a mark must (a) be distinctive rather than merely descriptive, (b) be affixed to the product actually sold in the marketplace, and (c) be registered in the Patent Office. The need for distinctiveness rather than description, coupled with a marketing goal of attracting attention and staying in the consumer's memory, is what prompts the odd spellings. Trademark is related to service mark, used to distinguish the services of a certain provider.

(2) A trade name is a name, style or symbol used to distinguish a company or business rather than a product or service. It establishes and preserves the company's reputation and goodwill. General Electric is a trade name.

(3) Copyright is a property right in an original work of authorship, including literary, musical and artistic work, fixed in a tangible medium of expression. It entitles the owner of the exclusive rights to the work, including to the profits generated by the work. The ideas underlying copyrighted works cannot themselves be copyrighted, so a person who develops a recipe for creme brulee can preclude others from selling that recipe, but cannot stop them from selling another recipe for creme brulee. As you've noted in another thread, under US federal law, copyright is subject to certain "fair use" exceptions, including brief quotation for the purpose of critique.

___________

I believe that the Sinclair dinosaur was adopted in acknowledgment of the origins of fossil fuels.

________

3M Company is a good example of a trade name gone awry. Originally the Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing Company, the corporation was formed by a group of investors in a smallish town in Minnesota to purchase and exploit a deposit of a mineral (I forget which one) discovered nearby. The investors planned to sell the mineral for a certain industrial use, but discovered that the mineral was of inferior quality and couldn't be used for that purpose. Left with a bunch of rocks, they explored alternate uses and started making sandpaper with it. That lead to BIG advances by the company in the production of papers and glues, including the invention of masking tape and cellophane tape. That's why a mining company is a leader in stationary supplies and now calls itself 3M. 3M brought us Scotch tape, another product with a trademark so successful that it nearly lost its purpose as a trademark.

-- (c) 2001

>I believe that the Sinclair dinosaur was adopted in acknowledgment of the origins of fossil fuels.

What morbid ad agent dreamed that one up? Although I suppose putting that cow on bottles of Elmer's glue is no better...

Virginia looks like a sleeping camel

Given the crop Ole Virginny's famed for, should not that be "a sleeping Camel®"? [couldn't-help-myself emoticon]

It's different-- Elmers (and most "white glues") are made from whey-- a waste product of cheese making--
Milk is seperated into "curds and whey" and the curds become cheese. Whey (in the quanties that were being prduced) was a "toxic waste" it killed fish, it smelled bad, ect.. But someone noticed, it dried "sticky" and it glued paper to a surface--

So Elsie survives "white glue" now as for a mucilage type glues...

I have to confess with shame that at least 40 percent of my fellow citizens could not tell you where Manitoba or Alberta are.

One of our favourite shows is this Canadian comedy/current events show called "This Hour Has 22 Minutes" (a joke on the CBC's 22-minute evening newshour). In it, one of the hosts, Rick Mercer, will periodically have a segment called "Talking to Americans". He goes down to some southern US state (or other places, he went to Harvard once) and poses a garbage question to people, to see what kind of dumb things they say which show their ignorance of Canada (and the world). For example "Did you know that President Clinton approved air attacks on Saskatchewan this week? What do you think of that?" Then people will answer with things like "Yeah, we believe that we should do what it takes to maintain American sovereignty" or "If that's what's necessary to keep peace in the world then I support it 100%". Another good one was "Did you know that Canada recently celebrated the coronation of their new king Svend and queen Luba" (first names of a member of parliament and a TV personality) (by the way, we don't have a king and queen!). "Would you like to congratulate Canada?" And they get people on tape saying "Congratulations Canada on the coronation of your new king and queen" and other stuff. The best (or worst) part of it is that he talks to American politicians - the governor of Arkansas comes to mind - and gets them on camera saying these things. I am not kidding. He does it all with a straight face and it is too funny (and kind of embarrassing) to watch.

So, our big secret is out. Of course, not every American falls into this group and they obviously don't show us the footage of when Rick talks to the informed ones. However, lots of Americans don't know anything about Canada so it makes great fodder for our comedians.

And obviously that doesn't include the members of this board, who not only know a lot about the world but can admit when they don't know something, and then look it up! (I will admit to looking up where the heck Vermont was, exactly, a couple of weeks ago. New England is all a blur to someone from Western Canada!)

Bean,

I think it would be worth my while to get a satellite dish just to be able to watch "Talking to Americans."
Thanks for telling us about that program(me). Some of us can poke fun at ourselves, though: Late-night variety show host Jay Leno (the Tonight Show? Or is that Letterman? doesn't matter for now) often steps out to do a vox pops, similar to your Mercer, with the proverbial man on the street. Again, the informed don't make good footage so they aren't used, of course, but what we do get to see is hilarious in its sadness.
[schadenfreude emoticon]

There's a "story" going the rounds that opines:
If the now-USA had been settled from the west, instead of the east, New England would be designated a National Wilderness Area!
It was a hard scrabble life for the early settlers!

Years ago during a stint as a manager for an American Automobile Association office, I was often amused by the plans of visitors from other countries or even from the South or Western US !
They had planned three days to "see" New England including the City of Boston, Cape Cod, the Berkshires for the Boston Symphony Music Festival at Tanglewood in Lenox, Mass. Plus Vermont for maple syrup and Maine for lobsters. They were amazed when I got out the big New England map an started explaining to them about driving times! Inevitably they'd comment "But it looks so small on the maps!
It takes a good three days just to hit the (limited) highlights in Boston!
That's why, when travelling, I stop at the local AAA offices!
wow

Well, Bean, This Hour Has 22 Minutes will continue to have fodder for at least the next four years. I trust that Mr Mercer has already booked a flight to the District of Columbia, for another display of abomniable ignorance. Please be sure to tell your friends that we aren't all like that! Thanks.

I wonder what answers we would get if Canadians were asked about USA ? That's not meant as a zinger, but aside from the folk in cities along the Cannada-US border, friends who have visited "inland" Canada have been surprised by misinformation and misplacing concerning US cities and states!
Meanwhile, do they sell tapes of the 22 Minute Hour shows? Have they a web site? I'd love to see a sampling.
wow

And one that maybe isn't apocryphal:

The family name was Toyoda* but a numerologist convinced them the car would sell better as Toyota.

*Even Ænigma prefers Toyota.

Verizon's a good one. I parsed it as Vertical Horizon. I later got the real word but Vertical Horizon won't let it in.

When I went to Japan, one of the funniest (and I don't speak japanese) shows i saw was a "pronounciation" game show.

Roving cameras asked tourist to "pronounce" a common phrase. the phrase was writen in "western/roman" alphabet, and no guide was given. the contestants (celebraties) had to guess what was being said--

The text was something one the order of "give me liberty or give me death" "We are not amused" -- classical/cliches type phrases. They have 5 or 6 tourist-- and start with the worst-- It could be very un PC-- but it was funny to watch and even i could "hear" the differences between the worst pronounced phrases and the best--

if you ever watched "archie bunker" hear him use the very old, very low class "turlet" for toilet- oh what pronounciation!..Image how such a pronounciation would sound to someone from an other country! Some "english films" and BBC shows-- featuring speakers for the "North" (Yorkshire or Northumbria) have been broadcast in US with sub-titles. and there are so many simple words that change pronounciation just in US.water or roof, and then from england to US- there is a change of vocabulary as well as pronounciation.

and I'm with Wow-- for the most part, Jay Leno is on too late for me to watch and still get to work on time-- but when they set a promo for "jay walking" as the segment is called-- i always stay up. Questions include "how many states in USA? How many planets? During the olympics-- What language is spoken in Austalia? (one answer "austrian") During the elections-- photo's of candidates-- and question "who is this?" the answers Jay gets are scary!

I have a small amount of sympathy for people from the USA when it comes to world "trivia". Whilst it is hugely amusing to see people from the USA given maps of Europe and asked to put a pin on major cities like Paris, Madrid and Rome, our own knowledge of the capitals of US states, South American countries and some of those little places in the Caribbean is distinctly hazy.

Schools (here anyway) decided years ago that geography was more about knowing about land masses, rock formations and politics rather than knowing answers to pub quizzes. It gets left to the more trivia-minded students to research those "facts at your fingertips" that we all prize so highly.

The US is a huge country and very few ordinary working people get to travel the world so that they have a specific reason to learn about other countries. I was told that if you live in Florida, an event in California is treated like world news, it is so far away. I think of this as "big country syndrome". There is so much news from war zones, that there are few column inches left to cover the news from the rest of the world. I noticed on this morning's news that two of the top three news items here were about the US (item one was the brouhaha following Clinton's activities during his last days in office). It is hard to imagine a news story from, say New Zealand, making into the top three headlines in the US. The converse is much more likely.

As the story would have it the name Exxon® was the result of an exhaustive computer program and search. Rejected names included Enco® which was a previously used name of Standard Oil® but was found to mean broken car in Japanese (shades of Nova®). Common rumor had it that Exxon was a combination of Esso and Nixon.

Although I suppose putting that cow on bottles of Elmer's glue is no better...

Actually, FB, if you were to look at the other end of Elmer, you'd discover that HE wasn't a cow, but a bull. The same people who gave us Elsie, the Borden's cow, gave her a boyfriend, Elmer!

Dear Geoff: and which bovine's glandular productions are contained in the glue?

We still have Esso (and probably) Mobil petrol stations. I hadn't realised that ExxonMobil was the parent company.

Did they run the "Put a tiger in your tank" campaign, or the "Esso sign means happy motoring" in other parts of the world. The name Esso seems to be linked with mainly positive images here, whereas we only ever hear the world Exxon linked to Valdez [wince], so I don't suppose that they are keen to change the name.

Ferries operating the Channel suddenly became "P&O Ferries" after the parent company, after the "Herald of Free Enterprise", a "Townsend Thoresen" ferry went down with its bow doors open, losing many lives.

The family name was Toyoda* but a numerologist convinced them the car would sell better as Toyota.

Yes, indeed, but then it's a transliteration, if that's the right term, from Japanese characters, so many a westerner might never know the difference.

By the way, do you know what they built before getting into building automobiles? You'll be in stitches when you find out!

Did they run the "Put a tiger in your tank" campaign... in other parts of the world.

Of course, they did, but here in the States, it violated the Endangered Species Act, and, besides, cat fur is hell on fuel injectors.

wow wrote:

I wonder what answers we would get if Canadians were asked about USA ? That's not meant as a zinger, but aside from the folk in cities along the Cannada-US border, friends who have visited "inland" Canada have been surprised by misinformation and misplacing concerning US cities and states! Meanwhile, do they sell tapes of the 22 Minute Hour shows? Have they a web site? I'd love to see a sampling.

What I feel is the difference is not so much knowing WHERE a city/state is, but having heard of it at all. If you were to tell a Canadian that Canada is bombing Vermont (to use a reverse example), we would know that you were kidding. We might not know just where Vermont (or Oregon or Nevada or Tucson or Little Rock) is exactly, but we know they are in the US somewhere. And that we wouldn't likely be bombing them! And EVERYONE in Canada knows that the US has a president, not a prime minister or a king or queen. (Even though some may not be concerned enough to know WHO exactly the president is!) You have to remember that we get half our TV channels and most of our sitcoms from you guys, so all the passing references to cities, states, people, become familiar to us. But since our Canadian-made shows are few and far between, and most probably don't get exported to the US (except some notable ones like Degrassi Junior High/Degrassi High, You Can't do That on TV), the passing references to Canadian landmarks and government are never heard by Americans.

I think, in the end, some people, Canadians, Americans, and otherwide, just don't care much about geography. One thing that ANNOYS me is that all our friends back in Winnipeg think we can so easily come back and visit them. Well, it costs between $700-$1000 round trip by plane from St. John's to Winnipeg for one person. Or we could drive 4500 km (nearly 3000 miles), including a 14-hour ferry ride, and take almost a week to get home to visit! A quick hello-goodbye and we'd be on our way back again. Guess what - on a student's pathetic salary, with my husband only working part-time because that's all there is, it isn't going to happen!

As for a web site, try http://www.22minutes.com. Looks like you can buy tapes, and at $12.95 Canadian ($0.10 US, ha ha, just a little bitter about our weak dollar) they would be a great deal! They do have streaming video of the now-infamous rant about the leader of our right-wing party, Stockwell Day, and the move to have him change his name to Doris by a "citizen's initiative". You have to see it to get it. Anyway, for a good laugh you (plural you) may want to have a look!

>so they decided to change the name and came up with Exxon.

Actually,I don't think it was Esso at that point. By changing the name to Exxon they proved that a big oil company did not have to be Humble.

was a totally made-up word that a panel of linguists certified as having no meaning in any major language. Or so goes the conventional wisdom.