Kinfolk

Two new names—Kinnek and Kngine—are bringing back old memories.

The names are more similar than they appear. That’s because – surprise! – Kngine is meant to be pronounced “kin-gin.” Yes, “kin-gin,” despite the fact that (1) Kngine is meant to be a compression of “knowledge engine” and (2) in English, K before N is always, always, always silent.*

But language appears not to be the strong suit of the Kngine team—which is odd, since Kngine is billed as a natural-language app.

 

This line appears in large type and unpunctuated:

With its simple interface and brilliant engine your life will be smarter

My life has a rather complicated interface, actually. But I digress.

So what we have are two more names that begin with kin, just like—here comes the nostalgia—Kindle (Amazon’s e-book reader), KIN (Microsoft’s ill-starred mobile phone), and Kinect (Microsoft’s Xbox 360 peripheral).

Some of you may also remember Kinetic, a fitness game made by Nike for the Sony EyeToy.

New York-based Kinnek calls itself “a better way to manage your business purchases”; Silicon Valley-based Kngine says it’s “changing the way people create, acquire and consume Knowledge [capital K sic].”

The companies may be brilliantly innovative—it’s too early to tell—but they haven’t signaled it with their names, which are derivative (Kinnek) and forced (Kngine).

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* In Yiddish you’d pronounce the K. Compare knaidlach (matzoh balls), pronounced with a kuh and a nay.

Comments

[Mark Gunnion]

And they could have gone for Knengine, pronounce it Nen-jin. wwww.Knengine.com is available now. They could even be cute and pronounce it kuh-nen-jin, like a kid might say guh-new for gnu. Tongue-twistingly, however, www.KnowlEngine.com is taken, and coming soon. I suppose it's pronounced noll-engine.

[Karen]

And let's not forget K'Nex, a toy the Prez was very enamored of recently when he visited the factory. http://www.knex.com/

[Nancy Friedman]

@Mark: KnowlEngine is doomed to be mocked as "null engine."

@Karen: "K'Nex" is how I pronounced "Kleenex" when I'm mid-sneeze.

[Scott Schulz]

"Knish" might be a more widely known example of a Yiddish word with a pronounced kuh. See, for instance, the last line of Cheryl Wheeler's song Potato (http://www.cherylwheeler.com/songs/potato.html) as immortalized on YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6uLUVI3Y0q0) (Warning: high likelihood of earworm).