Story behind your screen name?

[alexandr]

Georg !

THANKS!

Alex.

[Michael]

Honest shock and surprise it wasn’t taken! Been surrounded by Michaels growing up, was sure I’d have to add a # or something 

Michael 

[Malleus]

Malleus is Latin for "Hammer"

[ThomasPowers]

And I thought you had based it on the infamous book "Malleus Maleficarum" written in 1486 by Heinrich Kramer...

[Malleus]

I guess that would make me look smarter, but truth be told, I was unaware until your mention of it.

[ThomasPowers]

Always good to check the context of a name/image before using it as there are a lot of examples of big companies messing up big time. The Matador car and baby food jars with pictures of babies on them come to mind.

So this was "Malleus aforethought?"

[Malleus]

Yeah, it's always good advice to check things out before using them, but if you dig deep enough, you can find problems with almost anything.  (although, some stuff is definitely worse than others)  One good example that comes to mind, is the ruination of the swastika.  Before the Nazis ruined it, it was thought of as a symbol of luck and good fortune.  Now...  not so much.

[George N. M.]

The floor of the entrance hall of Pueblo, CO Central High School, built about 1920, IIRC, is tiled with a swastika pattern.  At the time it was only a Native American symbol.  There is periodically an outrage about it, about once/generation, but so far common sense and historical awareness have prevailed and it survives.  

There is also a neighborhood in Denver, dating from the early 20th century, call Swastika Heights.

Runes have gotten problematical because of their association with National Socialists and neo-Nazis but I have always managed to keep them in the context of Viking re-enactment and Scandinavian heritage.  My touchmark is the Anglo-Saxon rune for G.

IIRC, Hyatt Hotels had to rebrand in China because their name means something nasty in Mandarin and Exxon was selected as a company name because it means nothing in any language.

"By hammer and hand all arts do stand."

[ThomasPowers]

I remember the switch to Exxon and how there was only 1 language that used the double x which made it easy to avoid pitfalls.   There is a hotel in a small town that has swastikas in their brickwork---again from the 1920's IIRC.

[Irondragon Forge ClayWorks]

22 hours ago, George N. M. said:

At the time it was only a Native American symbol. 

Actually it dates much earlier, used by the Celts & Druids in Europe, I forget the time period though.

[Malleus]

I remember hearing of it being used by the ancient people of India.

[JHCC]

The earliest known surviving example of the swastika is from a cave painting in Ukraine. I don't know how old it is in the New World, but its use probably began about five thousand years ago in the Indian subcontinent and spread out from there.

When I was studying linguistics, one of the things that stuck in my head was that the form of a symbol and its meaning are essentially unrelated, even random -- in other words, that symbols have meaning because humans assign meaning to them. The swastika is an extremely vivid example of how one set of associations can almost completely supplant another, to the extent that earlier uses (e.g., the pre-Nazi swastika being used by the Lithuanian air force or the Swedish hydroelectric authority) are almost entirely abandoned.

I don't often say this, but the Wikipedia article about the swastika is actually quite good.

[Scott NC]

  I described "Nodebt" on this thread somewhere but I grew to not like it anymore, with a passion, for personal reasons.  So... I have had it changed to my first name and my new home state.  My last name initial was taken... sigh.... 

  I like to be called by name.  Good or bad.  I thought about changing my avatar at the same time and muddy the waters as I usually do but I am thankful for having my request fulfilled.  No more tomfoolery.  For now.  Maybe no-one would have noticed anyway... 

[LeeJustice]

Alrighty then, Scott.

[Irondragon Forge ClayWorks]

I noticed and thought it was a good move.

[Scott NC]

  Thanks.  It feels a little weird.  Refreshing but weird....

[Malleus]

ah...  it won't take to long, and you'll be used to it.

 

[arkie]

On 3/20/2022 at 10:34 AM, ThomasPowers said:

I remember the switch to Exxon and how there was only 1 language that used the double x which made it easy to avoid pitfalls.   There is a hotel in a small town that has swastikas in their brickwork---again from the 1920's IIRC.

Thomas, maybe you can verify this, being of the oil patch persuasion.  When Humble Oil and Refining changed the name to Exxon, Exxon was in deep kimchee because there was a company in Europe with that name and it cost Exxon millions of $$ to get off the hook for trademark/copyright infringement.

[George N. M.]

Arkie, that may be an urban legend.  A company the size of Standard Oil of New Jersey (which had acquired Humble Oil) would have done extensive research and due diligence to avoid copyright violations anywhere where they were going to use the new name.  They were originally going to use Exon but the then governor of Nebraska was named Exon.  And they thought about using Enco, one of their then current brands, but in Japanses it is slang meaning a broken down car.

There were also issues with the various brands in use at the time because they were state specific as a result of the break up of Standard Oil in 1911.  For example, Chevron was/is a brand of Standard Oil of California.

To add to Thomas' comment about swasticas there are lots of pre-Nazi examples based on both Native American and Hindu ancient usage of the symbol.  The tile floor in the Pueblo, CO Central High School is decorated with swasticas and there is an early 20th century subdivision in Denver named Swastica Heights.  The National Socialists tainted a perfectly good symbol for everyone.

"By hammer and hand all arts do stand."

[Frosty]

3 minutes ago, George N. M. said:

Japanses it is slang meaning a broken down car.

I believe Coca Cola ran into a similar issue in China, seems Coca Cola means something B A D  and the one they originally chose meant tongue toad or something weirdly distasteful, in one of the many dialects of Chinese. The current name means Happy mouth happy smile IIRC. I don't recall it's been a long time since the story was in any news. 

Chevrolet ran into similar transliteration problems with the Nova in Mexico, Nova means "No go" in Spanish. It was already a very popular model so they let the name stand. 

Frosty The Lucky.

[arkie]

There was a humorous twist to one of the old Sinclair Oil gasoline names.  Sinclair's company symbol was the dinosaur, Brontosaurus.  There gasolines were named "Dino Fuel" and "Dino Supreme" as I recall.  Problem was that the loose translation of dinosaur is dino=terrible, saur=lizard.  So, as it were the Dino Fuel was "terrible" fuel.  Folks often got amused at the association.  Sinclair was absorbed in M&A's and the gasoline suffered a "terrible" demise, or maybe a "dino demise" as it were. LOL

[TWISTEDWILLOW]

On 7/14/2022 at 2:50 PM, Scott NC said:

I like to be called by name

A Scott by any other name wouldn’t sound as cool! lol

you got it! 

[Scott NC]

  Thanks Billy.  

[Shainarue]

I've used shainarue pretty much any time I have to pick a screen name. Shaina is my first name. Rue is part of my middle name. Decades ago, a friend had called me Shainarue after discovering my middle name and I liked it enough to use it online. 

 

I used to be much more protective of my identity online but still managed to have my identity stolen. Talk about an expensive nightmare! Now I have all my stuff frozen and whatnot so I'm not as concerned. I mean, I'm still not going to give away a bunch of info but I kind of like my name so I'll use it. 

[George N. M.]

I haven't heard Rue used as a name since I knew a friend of mine's sisters, Lucy Lee and Myna Rue back in the '50s and '60s on the South side of Chicago.  Their parents were originally from the South and like double barrelled names for girls.

"By hammer and hand all arts do stand."