Sprinter Trains and other ridiculous product names

[Mich the Tester]

This morning, due to a bugger-up by the railway people which left hundreds of people on an intercity train to the Hague which mutated into a train to Rotterdam after Utrecht, I found myself sampling the misery of a 'sprinter' train from Gouda to the Hague.

'Sprinter'; just think about the connotations of that word. Powerful yet graceful, even elegant movement at very high speed. A capacity to accelerate and then almost glide, seemingly effortlessly, with a serene appearance to the face, while the heart and legs pump out almost superhuman levels of power. All in all, quite exciting to watch. None of these characteristics are to be found on 'sprinter' trains. Somewhere in some miserable marketing office, a group of deluded, fat middle aged tossers must have wrestled with their notepads for hours, trying to dream up a name for a slow, rattling, mucky, uncomfortable and downright ugly contraption that they had decided to release upon the railroads of 'Hare Majesteit'.

Really, couldn't they have just called it a 'local train'? WHY do large companies run by fat impotent blokes have to trade in grossly ambitious euphemisms that can serve no other purpose than to disappoint the customer?

What are your favourite examples of ambitiously named, yet thoroughly disappointing products and services?

[doodab]

KY Jelly.

I always thought it should be called lubricunt.

[Mich the Tester]

KY Jelly.

I always thought it should be called lubricunt.

No that's the other way round. KY Jelly sounds fairly neutral, but lubricunt would suggest the proximity and availability of a human vulva, which probably doesn't apply to a lot of IT people who might buy the product.

[d000hg]

Boring. A sprinter is a person sprinting, if we assume the first use of the word is for people, rather than a generic word for 'short sharp effort'.

Certainly when I sprint it is not super-human, elegant or powerful. But I'm still sprinting

[gricerboy]

Us Gricers rarely refer to the names of classes of locos or multiple units by the designated name given them by the manufacturer.
As you rightly pointed out this nomenclature is sadly wide of the mark. Here's a little taster of the names we have for various items of roilling stock on the British Rail network:

Any diesel or elctric multiple uint = bog unit
class 21 dmu = bubble car unit
class 28 dmu = Hampshire Hog
Class 50 loco = Hoover
Class 44/45/46 loco = Peak (and I'm a member of the legendary Peak Army LOL)

Furthermore, I'm often disappointed by the names given to individual locos these days. years ago, locos would have names like Thor or Thunderer. The train I go ion last night was called "Margeret Wilson, Mum of the Year 2008".

I rest my case.

[Mich the Tester]

Certainly when I sprint it is not super-human, elegant or powerful. But I'm still sprinting

No you are not sprinting. You are running assuming you are relatively fit, or more realistically for the average bod, wobbling. 'Sprinting' is not a generic term for wobbling a bit faster than usual, but an elite activity, reserved for the most highly trained athletes and those animals provided by nature with great speed and grace, such as cheetahs, gazelles and horses. And it doesn't have anything to do with slow, crappy trains.

[Mich the Tester]

years ago, locos would have names like Thor or Thunderer.

Yep, bring them back, but make sure they're big, powerful, fast and noisy!

I think the Deltic prototype must be the coolest looking loco in history, but the Mallard and the TGV get close.

[SupremeSpod]

No you are not sprinting. You are running assuming you are relatively fit, or more realistically for the average bod, wobbling. 'Sprinting' is not a generic term for wobbling a bit faster than usual, but an elite activity, reserved for the most highly trained athletes and those animals provided by nature with great speed and grace, such as cheetahs, gazelles and horses. And it doesn't have anything to do with slow, crappy trains.

Bollocks! I thought you played Rugby.

I can run for hours(lope along) but sprint for only a minute or so at a time.

[chef]

What are your favourite examples of ambitiously named, yet thoroughly disappointing products and services?

Plopp chocolate in Sweden, I cannot think why anyone would want to bit into something brown with a runny centre named Plopp

[gricerboy]

Yep, bring them back, but make sure they're big, powerful, fast and noisy!

I think the Deltic prototype must be the coolest looking loco in history, but the Mallard and the TGV get close.

And the nois terms, the class 52 diesel hydraulic "Westerns" that used to run in the Western region up until the 1980s