The Terrifying Trend Toward Terrible Brand Name Punctuation

Branding Experts: No High Fructose Corn Syrup 'til You Right Your Creepy Courses!

Branding Experts: No High Fructose Corn Syrup ’til You Right Your Creepy Courses!

With October 31st around the corner, it’s the perfect time to discuss a subject that’s near and dear to my heart: What happened to the apostrophe that used to live in Hallowe’en? And how long has it been missing?

For years, I thought I’d never find that charming throwback to Ye Olde Worlde punctuation, but then I’ll be darned if it didn’t turn up the other day gratuitously tacked on to the title of the Lands’ End catalog. At least, I think that’s the same one. Or maybe the Lands’ End bonus apostrophe is the rogue migrant that’s missing from Maurices clothing chain store, and has nothing to do with Hallowe’en at all. 

Turns out Lands’ End and Maurices are nails that just barely scratch the chalkboard surface when it comes to unnecessarily aggravating brand names. To celebrate the scariest time of year, here’s my list of the most frightening fads in branding:

1. RanDom CapitaliZation: I’m looking at you, eBay, Chick-fil-A and every Apple product ever.

2. Ünnecéssåry Åccent Mårks: Even the deliciousness of Häagen-Dazs® coffee ice cream can’t quite take the superfluous umlaut taste out of my mouth.

3. 2Cute Misspellingz: Tumblr and Flickr, where are your vowels? Toys-backwardsR-Us, turn around and stand up straight! And Mortal Kombat and Cadbury Creme Egg, you two go sit in the corner until you’re ready to use appropriate spelling.

4. Interrobang-O-Rang: Sure, why not tack weird punctuation onto your brand name? That’s what Yahoo! does, without a second thought for the grammatical hand grenade they’re launching into the middle of poor unsuspecting sentences everywhere.

5. Constant Inconsistencies: Is it Walmart, Wal-Mart or WAL*MART? Luckily this well-trained superstore answers to all three versions of its fickle name.

6. Excessive© Trade®marks™: There’s an injectable wrinkle filler called JUVÉDERM® VOLUMA™ XC. With that much wrongness crammed into one brand name, I’m pretty sure the treated wrinkles are actually filled with grammar snobs’ righteous indignation in gel form.

7. Unpronounceability: Even if I wanted to buy a g’zOne how would I ask for it at the store? What about FAGE® Greek Yogurt, the name that’s so confusing they have to include a pronunciation key on the package? What happened to brand names you could speak and spell without having to Google them first?

The really scary thing is that the further down you go on the list, the more transgressions start overlapping like crazy. FAGE® is excessively capitalized, and all that’s missing from g’zOne is a half-dozen or so trademarks. Shudder.

Except for my irrational fear of clowns, there’s nothing that makes my blood run colder than the terrifying trend toward terrible brand names. Please, if mutilated language matters to you at all, follow my lead and hand out pocket dictionaries to all the trick-or-treaters that come knocking this year.


 

Maarit Miller is a writing junkie who will always love the Oxford comma.