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?
'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?
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