Word blindness: H2Origin

I had a momentary attack of word blindness recently when subbing a news story about a Peugeot hydrogen fuel-cell van called the H2Origin. Obviously the name of this vehicle is a combination of 'H20' and 'Origin'; however looking it I could only think: "I know what H20 is, but what on earth's a rigin?'

The H20 rigin. I mean H2Origin.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Interesting....Scientifically there are 2 ways to look at this and if you do you realise the name is utter rubbish......

Looking at the raw fuels:
-Hydrogen fuel cells: Hydrogen (H)
+ Oxygen fuel cell: Molecular Oxygen (O2)

Chemically react to produce: [energy] + H2O as waste product

So H2....Origin makes no sense as you do not use "H2" as a fuel origin, you use H and O2.

OR

H2O....rigin - but H2O is the waste product of the reaction, not the origin.

either way.....wrong!!

JD (The Engine Room) said...

My science knowledge is quite rubbish. So it should be H02Origin? Or H20Waste? Neither of those sound very good...

How about HOrigin, but making the 'r' look like a numeral '2'? I don't know how you would pronounce that, though, and I'm sure it would give plenty of other people word blindness.

The Ridger, FCD said...

I think it's a clever name, but on this car it's not helped by the two colors and the line down the middle, either.

Anonymous said...

Hi, the chemical formula for hydrogen gas is actually H2. So I suppose H2 Origin is not quite so dumb.

Anonymous said...
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