Wednesday, August 25, 2010

It's All In The Name



My company, Biteback Publishing, has encountered something of a quandary. We’re soon to begin distributing our books in the US but there’s a problem. Apparently Biteback in the US is synonymous with a notoriously militant animal rights organization, so our friendly distributors across the pond have suggested we use a new customer facing name there.

My colleague, Katy Scholes, decided to do a little snooping to see whether Bite Back US were really all that militant or if we could get away with keeping the name. She found the Bite Back website and was greeted on the front page by a picture of three hooded youths in balaclavas hugging basset hounds and a ferret looking nothing short of p***ed off next to a burnt out car.

Hello. Pleased to meet you.

Dialogue, call us Dialogue (in the States that is).

I wonder what Bite Back would have made of the cat in a bin incident yesterday...

20 comments:

Ken Tindell said...

That would be "Dialog" of course.

Mermaid of Moorgate said...

Poor Cat in the Bin! Bet a lot more people will start doing that now it's been made public.

I am waiting for the cat-in-a-bin virals to start appearing on the interwebs...

Anonymous said...

Change your trading name to BackBite.

And please can you tell me why on your links you promote such a homophobic crowd as Guido Fawkes?

Anonymous said...

And now you just have the small task of educating Americans in the correct spelling of 'dialogue' ;)

Can you fix their use of 'aluminum' at the same time.

Good luck in the US, you're playing with the big boys now.

Brian said...

Wouldn't it be Dialog in the States?

Victor, NW Kent said...

Brokeback?

Span Ows said...

That direct action website will wonder why their 'hits' are shooting up today! And 'US' would look too much like 'bite us'...

New name needed?

Hardball Publishing

Feedback Publishing

TP Publishing

The Grim Reaper said...

Iain said "She found the Bite Back website and was greeted on the front page by a picture of three hooded youths in balaclavas hugging basset hounds and a ferret looking nothing short of p***ed off next to a burnt out car.

Sounds like Liverpool on a Friday night to me.

To be honest, I'm surprised you haven't already changed the name of the company to Iain Dale Media or something like that. So I suggest that's your next step. I doubt there's an Iain Dale in the USA synonymous with anything as dubious as that.

50 Calibre said...

Bite US Back?

Blackacre said...

Should it not be "Dialog" for the States? They may think you are French otherwise.

Pogo said...


I wonder what Bite Back would have made of the cat in a bin incident yesterday...


Soup, mayhap?

Mark Taylor said...

I imagine they'd want the death penalty for it.

Brian said...

How about British Political or BP?

The Grim Reaper said...

Trevorsden said "And please can you tell me why on your links you promote such a homophobic crowd as Guido Fawkes?"

*sigh*

A certain blog being featured on a blogroll does not imply agreement with everything on the blog being linked to. To put it another way - Iain Dale is not responsible for the contents of third party websites. Every blogger follows the same principle. Do keep up.

hatfield girl said...

Never mind 'dialog'. How are we spelling 'quandary'?

Span Ows said...

iCowboy said...

Can you fix their use of 'aluminum' at the same time.

On dodgy ground there: they deserve a slap for colour/color and all the rest of their stupid spellings but on aluminum they are using the original spelling!

Anonymous said...

Sigh ! I know all that.

Victor, NW Kent said...

Span Ows - there is only one spelling of aluminium. Cowboy was referring to the pronunciation as aluminum - al-oom-in-um.

A move towards simplified spelling is inevitable as the concept of teaching grammar and spelling wanes away. We are moving back to the very times when Dr. Johnson set spelling down with his lexicon. Even 18th century documents show a wide variation in spelling of quite common words.

In fact Americans have no difficulty at all in reading our Limey books and I hardly blench at the spelling when I read the latest Jack Reacher novel.

There are far worse crimes - look what they did to rounders, skittles and football.

Span Ows said...

Victor, thanks...BUT...point of order:

"The earliest citation given in the Oxford English Dictionary for any word used as a name for this element is alumium, which British chemist and inventor Humphry Davy employed in 1808 for the metal he was trying to isolate electrolytically from the mineral alumina."

Read the rest...I know it's <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aluminium#Nomenclature_history>WIKI</a> but it's still true.

happiness said...

I think all of you concerned about "Dialogue" vs. "Dialog", "aluminum" vs. "aluminium" etc.will find that in the States they will accept either spelling. Their dictionaries will show alternative spellings and state that it is "British usage", "Australian usage" etc. The rule is that the first spelling shown will be the preferred one, but the second one will be acceptable. Thus "catalogue" will not have (most) Americans screaming "Britishism!". Of course the literacy figures there are not any better than here but there is less paranoia concerning differences in spelling being the thin end of the wedge regarding a cultural takeover.