What's in a Name? Or, We Want Our Name Back!

Have a look at these names and slang terms associated with the successful types of transport:

 

Car, Van, Truck, Bus, Coach, Bike, Train, Plane, Ship, Scooter, Moped, Tractor, Motor, Wheels.

 

They're all simple, easy to say, rolling off the tongue without the slightest effort.

 

Now think about Electric Bicycle, or Electric Bike. Awful, isn't it? No way to market anything.

 

The "motor cycle" trade and riders try to avoid that term, they just misappropriate the word Bike for their machines, recognising how unhelpful and awkward the double barrel name is.

 

Of course we did have an ideal name for our "bikes", it's Moped of course, but it's been wrongly applied for vehicles that have never usually had pedals. We either need that name back, or we need another equally promotable name for our velocipedes (No, not that!).

 

The conjunction of "ctr" in the middle of Electric makes it a word that doesn't flow readily, we trip at the middle. Other examples are Nuclear, commonly mispronounced as Nucular, famously by George Bush, and the similar difficulty that many Afro-Carribean and Asian peoples have with Ask, often pronounced as Arks. We don't need the descriptive Electric in a name for our bikes, we don't all the time (or any time) say Petrol Car, Electric Train, Aviation Fuel Jet Airliner, Diesel Ship.

 

Here's an example of the importance of a good name that catches on with the public. From 1950 on I was fitting and servicing cyclemotors for bikes. They were petrol of course, 25cc and 32cc Cyclemaster powered rear wheels, the 49cc Power-Pak driving the rear tyre surface, and the later 49cc BSA Winged Wheel, a variation on the Cyclemasters. There was no recognised vehicle name for these bikes, just "cyclemotors" for the engines only, and in a decade they were gone. Not quite though, there was still one to carry on.

 

The French introduced the Velosolex, a complete powered bike with a 50cc engine driving the front tyre through a carborundum roller. Was it better? Absolutely not, it was too heavy, underpowered, didn't have a very good reliability record and was a pig to pedal, both to start the engine and when the bike had broken down. The only hills it was good at were the ones going down. But it lived through a production span reaching into four decades, and to this day many older people instantly recognise the Velosolex name. And that's the key. Despite it's length, the name flowed easily and the bike caught on with the public in a way that the others without a name never could. That name came from Velo, meaning bike in France, and the Solex company, but it's derivation wasn't important, the nature of the word was.

 

So we need your thoughts. Either how do we get back our rightful name of Moped? Or, alternatively, we need a new one to popularise our bikes which someone has to dream up. All your ideas very welcome, one of them possibly leading to fame!

 

As with Hoover, Vespa, Duralay, TV, and countless others that are part of the consumer language.

Edited December 7, 200619 yr by flecc

Elped

 

Orbitec

 

Elmoped

 

Autoped

 

Motoped

 

Cyclec

 

Synergistic-pedalistic-electricalidotious....

Or even Amped, pronounced like Moped!

 

Nice start Miles, I like your last one, reminds me of when Microsoft were about to launch XP and I suggested they promote it with supercalifragilisticXPalidocious.

 

They didn't.

Edited December 7, 200619 yr by flecc

I do like the word 'moped' but every time I think of it, I picture a Honda Camino

Yuk!

 

Then I clicked "Submit Reply" and up came "Your message is too short, please include at least 10 words".

 

Truly a case of "why use a sentence when a whole paragraph will do".

Velocitron .........................................................................................................................................

Velectrix................................................

Velec...................

Velectrix................................................

 

Isn't there a new electric bike (scooter) that sounds similar?

Vectrix scooter: Vectrix official web site - Home

Pedex........................

 

 

ed. I think DuPont would scupper this one

Edited December 7, 200619 yr by Miles

Velex.................

Mmmm. Pedex, that's getting warm.

 

Though judging by the news lately, starting anything with ped which could be pronounced with reference to micturition might not be wise.

 

Even paediatricians are nervously getting a taxi home in case of misunderstanding!

Mmmm. Pedex, that's getting warm.

 

Though judging by the news lately, starting anything with ped which could be pronounced with reference to micturition might not be wise.

 

Even paediatricians are nervously getting a taxi home in case of misunderstanding!

 

Yes, that crossed my mind, as well. So many words in need of rescue......

I understood MOPED to be short for 'Motorised Pedal Bike', but the dictionary describes MOPED as 'a motorized bicycle that has pedals in addition to a low-powered gasoline engine designed for low-speed operation'.

 

So here goes :-

Mopedelec

Eloped (pronounced 'elo-ped')

Pedelec (heard that b4 somewhere)

BattBike

BattCycle

 

Or maybe we should take a leaf from the internet, you know, with names like 'Cyberspace', and my favorite, 'the Information Superhighway' lol.

 

SO with this in mind....

 

StarChasers

PulsarPeds

Photonipedes

SuperNovaPeds

Electroped

Cyberbikes

 

hmmm, I quite like that last one, cyberbike, quite catchy...

 

John

Edited December 7, 200619 yr by JohnInStockie

BattBike

BattCycle

 

Battmobile

ha ha, lol

Great list John, nice expansion of imagination, just what's needed.

 

That dictionary definition dates back to the late days of the cyclemotors I spoke of, the Moped name arriving too late to rescue them. By then the first scooters, Vespa and Lambretta, were gripping the public's imagination, and it was the word scooter that stuck, carrying them successfully into the 1960s..

 

Miles, that's just brilliant! A fun name. It could just work!

 

The kids who are always wanting to try my bikes would love it, I'm sure.

The "I" theme does sound good, but I think it would work best in the USA, especially the hyphenated ones like I-Cycle. Still a lot of English reserve about using I in this public sense. I'm interested in how well Izip will work here.

 

I read the logo ok, but can't tell if I've been influenced by prior knowledge, best checked on random uninterested parties probably.

That's quite a clever logo (eZee)

 

For some reason when I look at it though, I see the London Underground

 

Miles, that's just brilliant! A fun name. It could just work!

 

The kids who are always wanting to try my bikes would love it, I'm sure.

 

With a bit of product "stylising", you might even make helmet and cape wearing cool

With a bit of product "stylising", you might even make helmet and cape wearing cool

 

Aren't they already? Now I feel like an idiot. I'd better get changed. :o

Howstuffworks "How the Batsuit Works"

 

It's all explained here. You just need to apply a charge to the fabric and it takes on an aerodynamic shape, thus saving your battery power at high speeds....

 

 

Edited December 8, 200619 yr by Miles

I always thought Clive Sinclair hit the spot with his two wheeled battery powered creation.

 

The Zike.

 

Good name, shame about the product.

 

http://www.nvg.ntnu.no/sinclair/images/zike.jpg

Yes, it is a good name, though polluted by the product as you say.

 

Poor Clive's done it again with the A bike now, equally useless! Since his early success with the pocket calculator, I think his motto must be, "If at first you don't fail, try try and try again".

 

C5, Zike, A bike, not to mention his teenage career writing for Babani Publications, about which the less said the better!