stop already.

with giving Dutch businesses and products English names. This is a country with a fantastic reputation for "business savvy", whatever that is, where people speak English as a second language better than most Americans speak it as their first. Which explains WHY the Anglolinguaphilia in marketing exists, but does nothing to explain why the names are so embarrassingly BAD.

Maybe all countries do this. You've all heard about Engrish in Japan. And in America...I used to go by My Dong Korean/Vietnamese restaurant on Buford Highway all the time (great to yell out over your shoulder as you leave the house: "Hey honey, I'm going out for awhile, need anything from My Dong?"). And native Americans do it too (not "Native Americans")...isn't American food marketing full of appropriated foreign words, like "Cafe Buon Giorno"s and "Cafe Bella"s, and doesn't every city have a French resturant called "Pastis"? OK, but Americans are notoriously unilingual, so their naming a cafe or restaurant something completely banal or awkward in another language should not be a surprise.

But the Dutch have a mostly well-deserved reputation as sophisticated multilinguists.

How, then, could Albert Heijn call its newest "gourmet" ice cream Nut Explosion? It's bad enough that the name of this gourmet line itself is "Excellent" (a gourmet line that would be scorn-worthy no matter what it was called because in some cases they just repackaged things they were already selling as "regular" products. And in most cases, they stopped selling whatever product they were carrying that might have competed with their new brand, like Haagen-Dazs. Excellent!).

So, anyway...if anyone asks if you'd like to taste their Excellent Nut Explosion, eh....no you would not (this link in Dutch points to a product recall from AH because some of their Excellent ice cream had "hard plastic pieces in it which may be hazardous to your health"). Even better, when you Google "Excellent Nut Explosion", all you get are stories about meth labs blowing up. "Meth Lab Explosion" is a flavor I would be willing to taste before this Nut Explosion.

I haven't even addressed Gorgeous Restaurant...let me think about it over some Excellent coffee while you ponder their actual "mission statement":

Chic without constraint. Glamour without pretence. Personal and open. A place where you can feel at home, a place in which we’re happy to welcome you. A restaurant in one word... Gorgeous.

Actually those first two sentences are pretty much lifted word for word from my own personal mission statement...proof that industrial espionage is alive and kicking.

* not a real word.

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