Stupid Product Names

How do you pronounce “Casio’s G’zOne?” That’s what Strategic Name Development asks. Just the other day when I volunteered at my kid’s school book fair, a few of us were talking about Mo Willem’s Knuffle Bunny because we all love the Pigeon books. I thought it was pronounced “nuffle bunny” like “know.”

The librarian thought “K-nuffle” where you pronounce the “K” followed by “nuffle.” Either way, it’s a cute book and she was telling us that the pigeon is in that book. It took kindergartners to point it out before she learned that secret.

Thanks to Bad Language for the pointer and for sharing more troublesome names. He had me thinking about boring plane names. He’s right. Southwest is a fun airline and even doesn’t have an exciting name. Just a direction. JetBlue probably has the most exciting name and I wouldn’t even call it a cool name.

Paul and I were watching the news last night where they reported people had lined up for the PS3 since Tuesday and it was windy as heck here in Dallas on Wednesday. One woman wasn’t interested in the PS3 — she just wanted to auction one on eBay where they’re going for over $5K!

Then I asked Paul, “What’s the w-i-i? How do you even pronounce it? What makes it so different from Nintendo’s previous generation, the Gamecube?”
When Verizon’s new name came about… we wondered if it was “very-zone” or “very-zon” or like “horizon.” Now we know.

I’ve been stuck with my name since birth and it’s also my company name. I still can’t get people to pronounce my name right after all these years. Meryl, two-syllables-not-one-and- rhymes-with-Cheryl-Barrel-and-peril-not-pearl.”

I’ve never heard anyone say “Cherle” instead of “Cheryl.” And with Meryl Streep… that doesn’t help either except when I introduce myself. I have trouble saying words with the letter “r” in it. Well, dang I’m lucky to get a name with an “r” smack dab in the middle of it.

So I introduce myself as “Meryl Evans like Meryl Streep” and that usually does the trick. No, I’m not named after her,