What's in a name?

[Radio]

What do these names have in common?

Bluetooth (the technology that links things together)
Taurus (The car made by Ford)
D-Day (June 6, 1944)
X-rays (Those particles that go right through you, most of the time)

It's not the "thing" that makes the link. But there is something true about all these names. Something they have in common.



Internet research is allowed.

[Radio]

No takers? Not even a snide remark?

[ke0me]

--------Snide remark--------

There you go!

I have no idea what is in common, give me a year or 2, where is Carl?

[NN5I]

Originally Posted by ke0me

Where is Carl?

Carl is sitting here, clueless.

[N3EQF]

Well I asked Google, and the first hit led right back to this thread! Is THAT what's in common?

[Radio]

Originally Posted by N3EQF

Well I asked Google, and the first hit led right back to this thread! Is THAT what's in common?

Wow!

That means the search engines are working like they should!

I'll tell you Friday.

[NN5I]

Originally Posted by Radio

I'll tell you Friday.

It's been Friday for over eighteen hours, Wade. We're all ears.

[Radio]

All these names are "temporary" and were never meant to become "permanent"

It started with Wilhelm Roentgen who discovered "X-rays" - how to produce them, what they could be used for, (How to hurt yourself and eventually kill yourself, your wife and your lab assistants) He called them X-rays in his lab notes, meaning to replace the variable "X" with something more descriptive after learning more about their properties. He died without coming up with anything better and the name stuck.

The Ford "Project Taurus" - so named because the two lead engineers discovered their wives were both born in May. The development effort lacked a name, so they called it "Taurus" - assuming marketing would come up with something better. (They didn't) The project involved not only a new, next generation sedan, but they went out and bought all the competitors cars, took each one apart and adopted the "best" design of each component, seat tracks, wipers, door locks and so on, and put only what they considered the best ideas into the new car. Meanwhile, marketing lacking a "better" name, created a campaign around the Taurus name, figuring they would change it later. The name stuck. And it became the best selling car world wide 13 years running. It's new smooth lines are reflected in just about every car you see on the road today, and one of the first models is in the High Museum of Art.

Bluetooth was a king of Denmark, famous for bringing together the diverse factions of his kingdom and getting them to talk and work together. Again, the technology developers needed a name for their project and marketing could not, or failed to, come up with something better. King Bluetooths initials are preserved today as the Bluetooth logo. (That little thing that looks like a "B") The name stuck.

Operation Overlord, a.k.a "D-day" has the same issue with a sticky name. In all military operations, the actual date and time are referred to as MM-DD-HH-MM (so you have H Hour and M minute as well). The operation could be discussed as "3 days before D-day or 5 hours prior to H hour" without actually mentioning times and dates. And "D-Day" stuck, few remember the actual name of the landing - Operation Overlord

So now you know - all temporary "place holders" that stuck, having never been changed.

[Radio]

Another naming oddity involves the Chevrolet Camaro.

Car makers, GM in particular, use alpha numeric codes to describe options and groups of options (packages) available to order cars. GM codes are usually A-##, one alpha, two numbers. Marketing and engineering had come up with a package for the high performance/sport/high end Camaro but were having a hard time coming up with a name to call the package/model for marketing.

The randomly assigned package code?

You guessed it.

Z-28.

[ke0me]

And now we know
"The rest of the story"

With a nod to Paul Harvey.