Margaret Marks of Transblawg has an entry explaining a few of the basic rules of IKEA's often bizarre-sounding product names; if you read German, you can go to her source, an article in Stern, and find out much more. Or you can just play the IKEA game.
Posted by languagehat at August 31, 2003 05:07 PMI think I'll add a list in English. I couldn't find it at a cursory glance at the Web.
Posted by: MM at August 31, 2003 06:02 PMOff topic, but I just found a great German word: "soundso".
Posted by: zizka at August 31, 2003 06:09 PMA mystery solved.
Posted by: beth at September 1, 2003 10:58 AMThanks for the pointer, like many others I've been wondering about this for years.
If, however, bookcase ranges are named after occupations, what does a BILLY do for a living?
Posted by: Jonathon Delacour at September 3, 2003 04:30 PMWell, according to my Cassell Dictionary of Slang, a billy is a policeman. So there you go.
Posted by: language hat at September 3, 2003 05:08 PMThere you go, indeed. I knew of Bobby, but not Billy...
Posted by: Jonathon Delacour at September 3, 2003 09:05 PMAhh....so *that's* why the stick carried by police is called a "Billy Club". I've always wondered about that.
Frank.
Posted by: Frank at November 19, 2003 01:03 PMbut Billy's not an occupation... not even here in Sweden
Posted by: emma at February 9, 2006 02:59 PM