The world we live in is full of names. Although they are meant to be handles to the identities to individual objects in the world, unique to the object alone and free for all to use to refer to it, many times names fail to achieve either or both of these goals.
One of the many ways that this fails is in the names of some of the most pervasive names of them all: the names of brands and franchises. They are plastered all over the world, constantly vying for your attention by eye and by ear. Yet, in other ways, they are amusingly shy for such a forward name: you cannot use them in certain contexts, and they are restricted from appearing in otherwise-perfect representations of reality. The fact that there are extenuating circumstances to this situation doesn’t make it any less bizarre.
Ùzje, perhaps cognisant of this disconnect, has always had a cultural habit of never using any name that is foisted upon it; instead, most names that come in are translated in a unique manner, ensuring that the translated names are free to be used in all contexts. Some call it a crass reminder of the city’s somewhat embarrassing habit of bootlegging everything, even to this very day; others consider it a grand display of the population’s pride in linguistic freedom and pride in the collective ability to perform great linguistic feats, and a stand in the increasing pressure of other countries pushing in potentially unwanted media.
Let us trace the tracks and times of a 3-kyū student as he makes his way through a typical Friday, and see how many names cross his path every day.