I recently visited Hong Kong. In a mall I spotted a shop called Sinéquanone (sic). It was flogging "French fashion", quite pricy "French fashion". Who knows, it might be French inspired. You can tell its authentic French thanks to the e acute and the trailing e!
Sine qua non is Latin.
To be fair, the quality did look pretty decent but marketing needs to try harder. Mind you that's not the daftest brand name or trademark ever! Who could forget the Rolls Royce Silver Mist? Mist in German means dung, manure or shit. Someone thankfully noticed before it was released (Frankfurt motor show) and it became the Silver Shadow. Then there was "Consignia" ...
> Mind you that's not the daftest brand name or trademark ever!
Here in France, the daftest I've seen is the Audi e-tron, with etron meaning turd... Though it's been out of common use, so Audi just left the name as is.
> To be fair, the quality did look pretty decent but marketing needs to try harder.
When I lived in Hong Kong, I once saw a boutique grocery store that had a wooden hanging-sign/plaque, and IIRC it was 1997 and the sign said "Since 1996."
Far more amusing were the businesses non-ironically translated as things like "1000 Golden Fortune"-something-or-other.
"1000 Golden Fortune" or Jolly good luck ... something. I think that's fair enough - translation of idioms is very hard when the languages are so far apart.
There's quite a lot of history involved too so that I suspect there are routine translations between the various Chinese languages eg Cantonese and Mandarin to English which might be a bit behind the times but they still work despite sounding a bit twee nowadays to the relevant ears.
Well that's me shot out of the water! It looks like someone bought a brand name and got it a bit wrong, through lack of understanding but who cares when the cash is running in and its not harming anyone.
Sadly this rings too true, rather closer to home. I own a smart new EV - an MG4. MG is a long standing British Marque. I know my car is largely Chinese.
I went to school in Abingdon, Oxfordshire, UK which is where the Morris Garage originated. My dad drove an MG Midgit in the '60s. My mum owned a Morris 1000 (Moggie). My granddad (Morris Oxford) ... well you get the idea.
In the end you have to decide for yourself exactly what you get when you buy a brand or even what a brand means in the first place.
I quite like my car but I do "firewall" it somewhat - I'm an IT consultant by trade.
Sine qua non is Latin.
To be fair, the quality did look pretty decent but marketing needs to try harder. Mind you that's not the daftest brand name or trademark ever! Who could forget the Rolls Royce Silver Mist? Mist in German means dung, manure or shit. Someone thankfully noticed before it was released (Frankfurt motor show) and it became the Silver Shadow. Then there was "Consignia" ...