Sunday, December the 21st, 2008
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Laban Tall at UK Commentators:
“There's a small Cultural Studies paper waiting to be written on names—how the Amalgamated Union of Wire-Drawers, Fettlers and Allied Trades turns in thirty years into something called ‘Together’ or ‘Unity’, British Insulated Cable and Radio Limited into ‘Xantippe’ or ‘Xenith’, and the Royal Signals and Radar Establishment via ‘Defence Research Agency’ into ‘QinetiQ’. The key being that the old, wordy, literate names actually described what the organisation did, the new ones conceal it and are post-literate, logos in letter form.”
And let us not forget the harebrained attempt by the Royal Mail to “rebrand” itself as Consignia.