The design themes of this clothing company are based on sensibilities from the nineteen sixties. However, “sixties” and “sixty” have very different meanings to their young female audience. What twenty something woman would flinch at the notion of being a “Miss Sixty”? Every single one of them.

Google may be the most recognized new 21st century brand in the West. But in China, its name was a dog. Surfers had been pronouncing the unfamiliar “Google” as “gougou” or “gugou,” among other variants – meaning “doggy” and “old hound.” An easier-to-pronounce name is just one of the reasons why rival Baidu has been eating Google’s lunch in China. That’s why the company tweaked its iconic name yesterday as it opened a new engineering center in Beijing. Google renamed itself “Gu Ge” (pronounced “goo-guh”), which China Daily elaborately translates as “song of the harvest of grain.” Google (Research) officials said the new name projected “the sense of a fruitful and productive search experience, in a poetic Chinese way.”

What a dim sum of thinking this is. Let them pronounce Google any way they want. Americans find it difficult to properly pronounce high-end names like Audi and Porsche, so each name has an Americanized pronunciation, no biggy.

And the “old dog” as a negative is a glaring red herring. Yahoo means “idiot” in English, Crossfire implies “violent death” and Gap means “missing, broken or incomplete”. The idea that consumers process names literally is false. They process them in the context of the experience and the brand.

And give the Chinese some credit, they know that Google is not a Chinese word with Chinese meanings!

Wang Laboratories, one of the iconic pioneers of computing, was founded by Dr. An Wang in Lowell, Massachusetts. Certainly they could have changed their name to accommodate Americans that might be put off by a name like Wang. But there was no need. Everyone understood that Wang was a Chinese last name and was not being used in the sense of Johnson, an American last name. Even though Wang was an American company. The same holds true here.

The notion of splintering a brand name like Google into different names for different countries, based on the sophomoric understanding of naming demonstrated by their explanation, is truly absurd.

There are no new rules of naming.

Says Blandor the Imponderable: “‘Gu Ge’… which translates as ‘song of the harvest of grain…the sense of a fruitful and productive search experience, in a poetic Chinese way’, is MY SHCTICK!!! This is no lesser a transgression than if Gallagher were to wear Robin’s rainbow suspenders or if Mr. Williams were to smash swollen cucurbitaceae on stage! I demand redress!”

More posts about Gu Ge
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From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Forth & Towne is a brand of clothing stores that is owned by Gap Inc., which also owns the Gap, Banana Republic, and Old Navy brands. Forth & Towne focuses on women over 35 who grew up with the Gap brand, but have “lost touch” with it.

History

The brand was announced by Gap Inc. in September 2004, and has a planned launch date sometime in Autumn 2005. At that point, Gap Inc. will begin a test phase of the new concept with four stores in the Chicago area, and one in New York . If successful, the company plans to add at least 50 additional stores in the United Kingdom, France, and Japan by the year 2007.

History??? What kind of header is that? It’s not even open yet, just a store that Gap plans on opening and it merits an entry in an encyclopedia? Not in one that wants to maintain its hard-won credibility.

Lest you think the Book of Revelation reference too heavy-handed, check out the number of search results returned here. There are no coincidences.