the list of 9 for july 1, 2008:
NINE OUTDATED CORPORATE AND ORGANIZATIONAL NAMES
First of all, I'm sorry that I've been slacking off on the lists. It's been a combination of nothaving enough time, due to a plethora of freelance work, and not having enough complete lists toinclude (though I have many works-in-progress). This list, in fact, could probably stand a bitmore research, and if any of you have some good ideas for it, let me know and I'll update it. Inshort, it's a list of currently-existing corporations and organizations whose company names arenow anachronisms.
- 20th Century Fox. This Hollywood film studio got its namefrom a merger between Twentieth Century Pictures and the Fox Film Corporation in 1935. The actualtwentieth century ended - depending on your beliefs - in either 2000 or 2001, making the studio'sname appear increasingly old-fashioned.
- 7-Eleven. The largest retail chain in the world,7-Eleven has been famous since 1962 for its stores being open 24 hours a day - not, as its nameimplies, from 7am to 11pm, though those were the stores' actual operating hours when the companytook on the name back in 1946.
- AT&T. The telecommunications giant's name stands forAmerican Telephone and Telegraph. Only they haven't had anything to do with telegraphs in years,and in fact telegraphy is nearly nonexistent in the U.S. today. Even Western Union canceledtelegram service in 2006.
- The NAACP. I hope this is not a touchy subject for myreaders, but this organization, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People,decidedly uses an outdated term for African Americans. It's ironic that, in an age where thephrase "colored person" is considered extremely offensive, the organization most commonlyassociated with serving the rights of African Americans still holds onto it.
- The United Negro College Fund. As with the above,tradition upholds the name of this non-profit institution, even while "negro" as a term forAfrican Americans is now generally frowned upon.
- McDonald's. Countless companies retain thenames of their founders even though the founders are long dead. But McDonald's hasn't hadanything remotely to do with any actual McDonalds since 1961. Today, even the fast food giantconsiders Ray Kroc, not Dick and Mac McDonald, as its founder. The McDonald brothers opened uptheir eponymous restaurant in 1940 and didn't franchise it until 1953. In 1955, milkshake machinesalesman Kroc purchased the ninth franchise, and in six short years he had bought the brothers out- screwing them over in the process. Though the restaurants' production line style of food servicestill harkens back to the McDonalds, everything else about it is really Kroc's.
- MTV. Although this cable television network very recently(as in last month) attempted to bring music videos back into its normal airing schedule, it's fairto say that "Music Television" hasn't described MTV's content for well over a decade.
- VH1. MTV's sister network, its acronym stood for "videohits one" and its initial programming format was adult contemporary music, to contrast with themore youth-oriented videos on MTV. Today, the network plays music videos in the wee hours, but ismore associated with reality TV than with "video hits."
- Coca-Cola. To the disappointment of many, I'm sure, cocaleaves are no longer the key stimulant in the world's most popular soft drink, though they remainin the name. Not everybody knows that Coke's inventor John Pemberton felt that coca(ine) was agood way to help thousands of Civil War veterans - including himself - overcome their morphineaddictions. (Like McDonald's, Coke became a smash thanks not to its founder but to wilybusinessman Asa Candler, who took over the business from Pemberton.)
|