Quite to the contrary, it would be perfect for Victoria’s Secret.

Today’s Telegraph brings us a salient article on corporate naming by Brian Millar. Here’s a taste:

In the 1990s, the professionals moved in. The company-names-are-a-serious-business business was spearheaded by Landor Associates, a San Francisco-based design group that was so cool its headquarters were a ship. Landor brought “methodologies” with them. Rigorous, mysterious methodologies.

If you ever wondered where those bizarre unpronounceable company names come from, look to the Landor crew. Avolar, Midea, Avaya, Spherion, Onity, Lucent. And Lucent’s rival, Agilient. You know, like Lucent – but agile! Nice. Soon lots of big branding companies were picking up briefs and now our world is littered with Arrivas, Aptivas, Achievas and Avandas.

How did they persuade boards to part with vast sums of money for something that had always been free, and was better when it was? Here’s an answer from Interbrand’s website: “The chosen name, Xingux, is derived from a word with many positive connotations by using ’signo’ (sign) with the abstract device of starting and ending with a letter X. The visual identity communicates the dynamism of the group’s business.”

Browsing these explanations is like reading the minute scrawls of a lunatic obsessive recluse: “Qarana originated from an Indian language called Jain meaning ‘to cause’… Hospira… is an abstract of the words hospital, spirit and inspire and the Latin word spero meaning hope.”

So that’s the important Jain and ancient Roman markets sewn up then.

The rest of the article contains many more spot-on insights by Mr. Millar, as well as the usual well-worn “wisdom” of some idiot from Igor. Full article here.

Interestingly, Landor now claims to be looking to hire coherent people. At least one anyway. If you’d like to crawl inside for a look, now is your chance. From craigslist.

When the Welsh aren’t busy gouging gonads, they occasionally find ways of making money off of what they do best. From everything2 comes the story of a Welsh entrepreneur who took his country’s most famous talent and turned a profit:

The Mosquito is the invention of one Howard Stapelton, Managing Director of Compound Security Devices of Merthyr Tydfil in Wales, and is simply a device that emits a piercing high frequency sound which has been described as a “cross between fingernails down a blackboard and a dental laser” which is apparently only audible to the under-twenties. It is thus put forward as a possible solution to the eternal bane of the British shopkeeper; that small crowd of anti-social teenagers who have nothing better to do than loiter outside their shop and deter older customers who actually have money to spend.

With an effective range of between fifteen and twenty metres Compound Security Devices claim that “field trials have shown that teenagers are acutely aware of the Mosquito and usually move away from the area within just a couple of minutes” and “that is completely harmless even with long term use”. The Times reports that the device was first used at a Spar shop in Barry where the owner Robert Gough was enthusiastic about the device’s success in driving away the local youth that he found so disquieting. “Either someone has come along and wiped them off the face of the earth, or it’s working” he is quoted as saying.

Whereas this might appear to be a hoax or some kind of scam, it seems that there is a very real medical phenomenon known as presbycusis or age related hearing loss which, according to The Merck Manual of Diagnosis and Therapy, “begins after age 20 but is usually significant only in persons over 65″ and “first affects the highest frequencies (18 to 20 kHz)”. Thus it seems quite true that it is possible to generate a high frequency sound that is audible only to teenagers.

The answer to the prayers of grumpy old men and women the world over, the Mosquito unit can be yours for only £495 plus VAT, with an optional security cage available at £35 plus VAT, all inclusive of postage and packing.

“Mosquito” is the perfect name for a product that promises to be even more irritating than a weekend in Swansea. Wales’ other successful businessman, Lucian James, can be buzzed here.