Grube Therapy

If you’re considering a coined name for your company or product, it’s helpful to keep in mind a general rule of English pronunciation: When a vowel precedes a single consonant that’s followed by an e, the first vowel is long. Double the consonant and the vowel becomes shortened.

Later: long a. Latter: short a. Miler: long i. Miller: short i.

Yes, yes, there are exceptions. But coined words are like hoofbeats: we expect a horse, not a zebra. We look for simplicity, not conundrums.

Which is why Gruberie is problematic.

 

 

 

 

 

Here’s how I’d pronounce Gruberie: GROO-ber-ee. My eye picked out Gruber, not only because of the aforementioned pronunciation rule but also because there’s a fairly well-known tech guy named John Gruber—he writes the Daring Fireball blog and invented the Markdown publishing format, and I follow him on Twitter. Here he is at the 2014 XOXO Festival. His surname is pronounced GROO-ber.

The Gruber surname comes from Germany; it originally meant “a person from a pit, mine, or depression.” Wikipedia tells us it’s the most common surname in Austria, where there were a lot of salt mines. (Salzburg—“salt castle”—is the fourth-largest city in Austria.)

But Gruberie was not founded by anyone named Gruber. Its founder is a software engineer named Sven Hermann. (And he’s German, which neither explains nor excuses anything.)

Gruberie is a restaurant application that’s designed to disrupt waiters out of their jobs. (Who needs the middleman, right?) So I deduce, painfully, that Gruberie is meant to be pronounced Grubbery, because one meaning of grub is “food.” It’s had that secondary meaning since the 1650s, the OED informs us. (Do people still say “Let’s get some grub”? I’m doubtful.)

But grub has less-savory meanings, too. A century before grub meant food, it meant the larva of an insect. A hundred years before that, it meant “to dig in the ground”: see pit, mine, or depression, above. And grubby has meant “dirty” since the mid-19th century.

Here’s how I’m guessing Gruberie got its ill-advised name:

• Founder and advisors noticed a bunch of food-tech companies with Grub in their names: GrubHub, Grubster, Grub Club, Grub Runner, GrubMarket. Some of them are even successful!
• They also noticed a bunch of newish businesses whose names end in -ery: Munchery, Mashery, Guildery, Cravery, Looksery, Jackery.

Obviously—obviously—the perfect name would be a blend of grub and ery. Right? Like Grubbery, which—uh-oh—turns out to be the name of a restaurant in Denver. Change the -ery to -erie, then, to make the name look fancy and French? Too bad: there’s a Grubberie in London.

What the hell: Drop a B! (Who needs the middleman?)

Allow me to say it one more time: Kree8tive spelling won’t help you secure trademark protection. It won’t make your brand more searchable. Much of the time, it just makes you look awkward, derivative, and clueless.

If you have to torture a word to make it “available,” it’s unlikely to be distinctive in the first place. Try a new word—or, better yet, a different metaphor. One that speaks more eloquently to the actual benefit of your product or service.

I’d be slightly more willing to forgive Gruberie its naming sins if it weren’t for copy like this:

I find this whole premise deeply objectionable, but for now I’ll just point out that it’s wave down, not waive down. And here’s another writing tip: Don’t replace and with an ampersand unless it’s part of your name (e.g., Crate & Barrel). 

I’ll leave you on your own to count the many comma splices in the rest of the content.

_

More bad-name commentary right here.

Comments

[Jessica]

It's GROO-ber-ee, no two ways about it. Besides my (and your) constant admonition that kree8ive spelling does not a trademark make, there's also my admonition and the PTO's that you cannot control how a mark is pronounced. I see GROO-ber-ee, I SAY GROO-ber-ee, and no amount of trying to hammer "grubbery" into the public mind will help. Plus, doesn't that just rhyme with "shrubbery" and "rubbery," neither of which is particularly evocative when it comes to food anyway? (And no, I haven't been to The Grubbery here in Denver.)

[Rhino1515]

Your post today about "GROO-berie" reminds me of the difficulty I have remembering just how the owners of a Pacific Northwest grocery chain would prefer I pronounce the brightly-lit name above their doors. This company was apparently founded in 1933 when a husband, his wife and the wife's brother opened a store in Bellingham, WA. Instead of calling the store Clark's after the wife's brother, they opted for the couple's last name: Haggen.

Now, I totally understand that the usual rules of pronunciation go out the window when it comes to family names. My own family tree is strewn with Schlenders and Ścisłowiczes (which slowly became Scistowicz, then Sistowicz). Still, when I see the double consonant in the middle of the name, I can only form HAG-gen (with a short-a and rhyming with 'wagon') in my head. The firm's website confirms they pronounce the name as HAY-gen. (The only similar name I'm familiar with is Hagen, as in Nina Hagen, which rhymes with 'noggin'.)

The Haggen chain has recently purchased about 150 Vons and Albertson stores in the Southwest which they plan to convert to Haggen grocery stores. They do not seem eager to reinforce their peculiar pronunciation in the minds of their new Southern Californian customers, though. The last few flyers I've received in the mail use the tagline: "Hello Haggen. Goodbye hassle." Maybe "Come to Haggen and buy some bacon" would've been a better choice.

[Nancy Friedman]

Rhino1515: Or "Hello Haggen. We're not pagan!"