In William Shakespeare's classic Romeo and Juliet, Juliet pondered aloud, "What's in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet." But I'm afraid that she got it wrong. If that which we call a rose was actually called, "steaming dung", I don't think that they would be such a big hit as an anniversary gift.
But this germ of a thought, somehow caused me to be on the lookout for business names that are so inappropriate that I can't help but think that they must affect profit margins. Over the course of just a few days driving around my local community, I had more than enough fodder for a decent size blog post. Here is what I found:
- Dressbarn (women's fashions) - that's right, let's make extremely image conscious women feel like beasts of burden.
- The Revolt (local restaurant) - "Honey, how was your supper?" ... "I think that it is staging a revolt in my lower intestines!"
- Hairphenalia (women's hair salon) - let's offend the literati with home-grown made up gibberish for a name!
- BJs Wholesale (bulk warehouse) - O.K., I'm not in high school anymore, but this still causes me to giggle like a giddy school girl.
- Wings 'n Things (local restaurant) - I firmly believe that anybody who is not a cretin would refuse to patronize any establishment that purposefully has a " 'n " in their name, just on general principles.
