Naming and shaming
Posted by Greg Fountain at 4:00PM on Wednesday 03 October, 2007 0 Comments
We learn that VW's city car concept is called 'up!'. With a lower case 'u' and an exclamation mark, obviously.
Toyota's unbelievably short four-seater iQ (sic) meanwhile carries itself with the lower case 'i' followed by a capital 'Q', and Mitsubishi's cX pulls the same illiterate stunt, its strangely mishandled badge presumably the key to avoiding legal action from Citroen, whose CX name is no doubt legally protected when capitalised.
Hyundai's i30 is another culprit, whose mere existence seems to be in the cause of making magazine sub-editors look stupid.
What's going on? Do we blame the texting generation for a sudden inability/unwillingness to spell, or should we add this vile epidemic to the list of global communication transgressions to be placed at the door of Apple, with its iBooks, iTunes, iPods and iDon'tknowwhats?
And surely, if there's already a Citroen CX, it's not outside the imaginative scope of Mitsubishi to think of some other random pair of letters? Or are all the good ones taken? Stand by presumably for the Kia db9, Hyundai enZo and (much more likely) Nanjing iPhantom.
It may not matter to them, but manufacturers need to know something: nobody who has been educated beyond infant school level will be comfortable driving around in a misspelt car. Sales will be lost, though obviously not among younger buyers, for whom the new Ford txt msg is a forthcoming must-have model.
There's a competition elsewhere on this site for a TG reader to come up with the name for the next small Alfa Romeo. A word to the wise: whatever your suggestion, don't even think about spelling it correctly. Not if you want to win.
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