HM Riverdeep has officially purchased Harcourt Education, Harcourt Trade and Greenwood Publishing from Elsevier.
The proud parents styled themselves Education Media and Publishing Group Limited when they were united, but what might they name their offspring? Something clever? Something creative?
Has the whale of a publishing company come up with a fancy appellation for the newly born Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Education Harcourt Trade Greenwood Heinemann creation?
How about something suitably Irish, like An Soilsiu? The Enlightenment...doesn't that describe what the educational materials publisher is all about? Prefer English? Then what about an acronym perhaps, or a new word that contains pieces of the existing names? Sort of like taking mammy and da's DNA, combining and recombining, and there's your baby.
No. The new child of HM Riverdeep is to be called Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. As dull and staid as that English textbook you tossed away as soon as the class had ended. No sparkle, no life, no excitement that says we can teach your children and they're going to like it.
A dark blue suit and white shirt sort of name...entirely corporate, not a lock of hair out of place, as stiff as you in your First Communion photograph. What better way to appear sound and stable than to plaster a sound and stable label on the whale? After all, it wouldn't be wise to name the company Pequod or Ahab, would it?
2 comments:
Awww... come on, the name's not that bad for a company that's like 150 years old. Changing it completely would be like changing the Ford name on autos or the Apple name on computers. The real tragedy here is that Houghton Mifflin comes first in the name. With the many changes in Harcourt over the past 100 years, the "Harcourt" name has always been first. Harcourt Brace, Harcourt Brace Javanovich, Harcourt General, Harcourt Education... But now, for some reason, the Houghton name comes first. I guess since they're an older company that maybe it's a seniority thing or something. But, personally, as a Harcourt employee, I think the Harcourt name should've come first.
That'll put those Harcourt employees in their place. Sure, always first, always at the head of the line. Ha ha ha, well, the last shall be first, right?
What's wrong with H2M? Trendy, short and to the point...and then all the employees could argue over whose H is first.
Post a Comment