You mess with Harpo Marx, you get the horns.

Wednesday, February 23, 2005

What's with the "Bank One" business?

Before I forget, I was thinking earlier today about Bank One, the gargantuan financial corporation that eats local and regional banques, the way Takeru "The Tsunami" Kobayashi goes through frankfurters.

Anyway, how on earth did they decide upon the name "Bank One"? Are they really the world's first banque? Was it founded by some caveman, who collected the rocks his contemporaries threw in his cave and then returned them "with interest" the next time one of them got close enough? Was the banque founded by Hammurabi or Methuselah? Did they win a contest for best banque? Even a People's Choice Award, as meaningless as that is? I mean, doesn't adding the number "one" to the name of your organization imply primacy of a chronological or qualitative nature?

This is like someone forming a Baptist church and calling it "First, First Baptist Church". It's nearly as pathetic as those college students who hold up the "number 1" gesture after a football victory, even though their team is 5-6. Why not go the whole hog, as it were, and call the company "The Best Bank in the World" or "The First and Only Bank" or "One Bank to Rule Them All"?

All right, I admit that on the last point we may be mere months from that claim becoming vaild.

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