"KITCHEN company Moben, based on a trading estate in Manchester, was yesterday given the go-ahead to use German-style spelling on its name in TV advertisements.
It is still banned from doing the same on print ads following a ruling five years ago which said it was misleading the public into thinking it was German.
Moben used an umlaut - two dots above the letter 'o' - on its website, printed literature and, recently, in TV ads for its fitted kitchens.
The umlaut had been deemed to give the impression the company was based in a German-speaking country."
I am not entirely convinced that the great British public would recognise an umlaut as indicating German origin. Whereas there is no doubt about the Teutonic provenance of Bauknecht.
Although it should probably be regarded as an example of diaeresis rather than of the umlaut, what is one to make of Häagen-Dazs? I find it difficult to believe that ice-cream wishes to carry the same cachet of German engineering efficiency, but perhaps "Vorspring durch Technik" has an application to the marketing of a 99 of which I remain unaware. Or am I being naïve?
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