On Mon, 5 Sep 1994 16:56:00 EDT, Peter M. Weiss wrote:
>It is my understanding (urban legend?) that large multinational
>companies check their acroynms for their company and products
>to make sure they don't mean something "nasty" in other languages.
 
That's TRUE and not only because it might mean something nasty.  Remember
the Cheverolet Nova (how's your Spanish?)  What a concept--naming a car the
"Doesn't go!"
 
>Did "Exxon" change their names from "Esso" because of that?
 
No Esso=Eastern States Standard Oil.  The Supreme Court decision breaking
up the Standard Oil trust limited (geographically) wherbrand names based
on "Standard Oil" (SOhio, Esso, etc.) could be use.  Standard Oil of NJ
(Esso) had an alternate brand name (used in the MidWest and other places)
of Enco that I'm told means "stalled car" in Japanesmight be
urban legend, because I don't know enough Japanese to know if it's true).
 
Standard of NJ tried to become the "Humble Oil Company" in the late 60s
(maybe early 70s).  Oxymoron that; people couldn't stop giggling.  It
didn't take too long before they gave that idea up.
 
A computer was used to generate all possible 4 and 5 letter combinations
starting with 'E' and containing at least one other vowel.  The final
candidates were compared against all the world's languages to be sure they
had NO other meaning (I recall reading that Standard of NJ had a heck of a
time verifying no other meaning in African tribal languages, Indian
sub-continent dialects, and Native American languages).  As you know Exxon
was the result. FQDNs and their literal meaning (somewhere).
 
In which of the Internet's many languages?  The censors at NBC thought
Artie Johnson's 'dirty old man' mutterings on Laugh In were harmless until
a viewer wrote in and told them what they meant in Yiddish! ;-)
 
>Murph: you up to it? ;-)
 
How could I resist ;-)
 
/s Murphy A. Sewall <[log in to unmask]> (203) 486-2489 voice
   Professor of Marketing                          (203) 486-5246 fax