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Subject:SUMMARY: Pronouncing "Paceon" From:"Rene Stephenson" <RStephenson -at- mwci -dot- mea -dot- com> To:techwr-l Date:Fri, 11 Feb 2000 11:52:40
Thank you all for the wonderful response. As promised, here are the results
and a summary of insights that I received.
FYI, here at Paceon, we pronounce it "PAY-see-ahn." Paceon = Pace + Eon
--> We're setting the pace for eons; the pace is on, for eons. We're a
telecommunications company -- fiber optic transport system, ATM network.
INSIGHT HIGHLIGHTS
------------------
Carol Mueller writes:
<<One could pronounce it like "passion" but I wouldn't recommend it. One
could also use "pace on" as if using a direct command. But here in this
valley, where we are up to our eyeballs in startups with funny names, I
think everyone would pronounce it the way I did first. If your audience is
multicultural, then perhaps you'd need a logo with some graphic assistance,
such as superscripting or subscripting the letter "e" to show that it isn't
supposed to be mushed together with the "o".>>
Melanie Fielek writes:
<<If Paceon is designed to be pronounced one way, but the public sees
something else, any meaning that should be derived from the pronunciation
is lost.>>
Dan Roberts writes:
<<I dont think most folks out there would know what a long vowel sign is,
actually.>>
Jean-Daniel Gross writes:
<<...in French Paceaon may be pronounced "Pason" which sounds like
"passons" and then having the bad meaning of "go to next" (=skip)!
...which is not very good from a marketing point of view! ...If I pronounce
the "e" of Paceon, it becomes in french "passion" ...but no trouble in
[German].>>
Philip Boyer writes:
<<I'd say pace eon, as in a company that will be setting the pace for
eons.>>
**** CONGRATS, PHILIP. YOU SPONTANEOUSLY IDENTIFIED PACEON'S ETYMOLOGY.
Dick Margulis writes:
<<In this case, the default American pronunciation is PA-see-an (where "a"
is pronounced as in farm. If you were to intercap it as "PaceOn" or
"PaceON," of course, the default pronunciation would change to PA-san (in
both cases).>>
Janet Valade writes:
<<...I don't like the idea of adding long vowel signs. They are not
attractive and some people don't even know what they mean. I was thinking
in terms of size or bold or something, but this really doesn't work because
the e serves double duty. ... Does it matter how people pronouce it? Aren't
company names mainly meant for visual media? ...Most people will just
pronounce it to themselves however they choose to, and does this really
matter. Actually, if some people give the name more than a passing glance,
trying to decide how to pronouce it, this can be a good thing. They may be
more likely to remember it. For example, Linux. ...Or GIF. Pronunciation
on
this is pretty much 50/50... Yet, all accept its use.
... don't mess up the visual appeal of your name for the sake of its audial
(a word?) appeal. Visual is much more important. Consider its flexible
pronunciation to be an asset.>>
Al Rubottom writes:
<<gotta assume it's "pay-see-awn", 3 syllables of nearly equal stress
[emphasis]. [I did study linguistics, including phonetics and
phonemic/pronunciation rules for a variety of languages back in grad
school...>>
