How many times have you been sure that you spelled the name of a brand or company correctly, and after how long did you find out that you were wrong? A new study by the British Solopress printing house, using the Google search volume data tool, checked the number of monthly searches to check the correct pronunciation of a company or brand.
According to the study, the company whose pronunciation is searched the most on average every month is Nike - with 25,500 searches worldwide. Over the years there has been a debate about how the name of the American athletic footwear and apparel giant should be spelled. In Israel quite a few people have pronounced it "Nike", but as the founder of the company, Philip Knight, clarified a decade ago, the correct pronunciation is "nai-ki."
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Nike is the company whose pronunciation is searched the most on average every month
(Photo: AP)
In second place is the South Korean automobile and electronics company Hyundai, whose pronunciation was searched an average of 24,230 times every month. The correct pronunciation of the company is Hyun-day. In third place is another car manufacturer - Volkswagen with 20,100 searches per month. Since the brand name is written with the letter V, it causes confusion in other countries of the world, but the correct way to pronounce the name of the German car is Folks-vagen.
In fourth place is the Mexican grill restaurant chain Chipotle with 16,460 searches. The correct way to say the name is Chu-powt-lay. Rounding out the top five is the prestigious French fashion house Louis Vuitton (13,200 searches). In this case, the way brand name Louis Vuitton is written can already cause quite a few errors. In practice you have to pronounce his name Loo-ee Vuh-ton.
Richard Kemp, chief designer at Solopress, which conducted the study, commented on the findings in an interview with the Daily Mail. "While it is never possible to avoid pronunciation errors, especially when considering the international market steps can be taken to minimize uncertainty: Among other things, you should have no more than four syllables in the name, make sure that the brand name is easy to spell and that it is not complicated."