Igor recently named a new audio company. The job required a name that would help them own the idea of sound, carry some excitement, and imply a bit of the ol’ European / Germanic hi-tech audio expertise brand equity.
There was only one name that could capture all three of these ideas and that name is Zounds. From the Zounds website:
Zounds was founded by Sam Thomasson, who has a hearing impaired daughter. When he would hug his daughter as a young girl, her hearing aids would squeal, causing pain to her. For years, he promised himself and his daughter that he would develop a hearing aid that would address these and other related hearing aid issues. Zounds’ breakthrough technology is the fulfillment of a father’s promise to his daughter, and intends to be a wonderful gift to others globally with hearing impairments.
Here are a few other notable occurrences of Zounds:
- From William Shakespeare, King John, act II, scene 1, line 466:
“Zounds! I was never so bethumpd with words since I first call’d my brothers father dad!”
- On an episode of the 1960s Batman TV show in which an evil character named the Puzzler kept giving clues in the form of Shakespearean quotations, one of which was “Zounds”:
Batman: Obviously! That’s the puzzle. “Z” is the most enigmatic letter in the alphabet, old chum. Think of the words that begin with “Z”: zigzag, zither, zodiac…
Robin: Zounds!
Batman: Exactly! “Zounds” is a Shakespearean interjection of wonder or surprise.
- Used as an interjection by the character Ned Flanders on the Simpsons (Lisa’s Wedding scene, aired 1995):
Ned: Zounds, I did thee mightily smitily!
- Again on the Simpsons (1999) in a quote by the minor character Professor John Fink:
“Zounds, someone took our gazebo.”
In one of the stranger cosmic coincidences, “Zounds, someone took our gazebo” was the tagline we had independently created for our client.