This morning on my way to work I pulled up behind a Honda Accord at a stop light. Like many cars it had a little sticker telling where it had been purchased. The funny thing was that this Honda had been purchased at the Honda Motorwërks.

This struck me as odd for a couple of reasons, which I will now describe. To me, there is no obvious reason for spelling your company’s name like that, because it is stupid. I can only imagine that the owner or founder wanted a more German looking name, because the German’s make good cars.

Umlauts are diacratic marks used in the German language (and others). And “motorwerks” is basically somewhere where engines or cars are made, specifically in Germany, as it is a German word. Umlauts have long been used as a “special effect”, mainly in the names of heavy metal bands, to make the name look “tougher”.

Here is where the problems arise. First of all, there are no umlauts over e’s in German, only a’s, o’s, and u’s. So there is no such word as “motorwërks” and it doesn’t really have a pronunciation. Second, the owner must have seen other car dealerships that had “Motorwerks” in their names and thought it was cool. Unfortunately they were probably BMW dealerships. Which was okay for them because “Motorwerks” is an English-ized version of “Motoren Werke” which is what the MW in BMW stands for (the B stands for Bayerische, ie Bavarian).

Oh, and last, but certainly not least, Hondas are Japanese cars. I won’t mention the most famous historical partnership Japan and Germany share, but it isn’t cars and it isn’t language.

Anyway, I always laugh at rediculous marketing rïdiculous markëting (thanks boys).