Saturday, March 26, 2011

What's in a name?

My wife and I throw nickels around like manhole covers, that is, we really don't like to part with money if we don't have to. We especially don't like to spend money at expensive and trendy eateries. The food usually sucks and too many smiling young people posing usually ruin both my appetite and my day.

This afternoon, however, we were across town in the Upper West Side and my wife--eagle-eyed as always--noticed a branch of the restaurant chain called "Five Napkin Burger," and, being in the mood for a burger, she persuaded me to eat there.

The place was stuffed to the gills, or udders and I was hoping for a burger of yore, the type we ate as kids before Dr. Christian Barnard discovered cholesterol. But what we each got was a fairly ordinary meteorite of ground beef. Even the "promised" five napkins were just a gimmick. We each got just one, and that was sufficient.

About five minutes into sitting down I realized that Five Napkin Burger was all sizzle and no steak. But the name did get me thinking about how important names are and how stupid most modern naming is.

Five Napkin Burger whetted both our appetites and our sense of nostalgia. A name like "Verizon" or "Best Buy" or any number of other such examples just leave people cold.

We'll eat dinner home tonight.

1 comment:

Tore Claesson said...

When I lived in Japan they had a drink, probably still have, called SWEAT. As far as I can imagine sweat taste like it did taste like sweat. Needless to say, it wasn't a favorite of mine. Not because I'm lazy, but I prefer to sweat of my own, not drink others.