Luton�� or Lut��n?

Kingsland High Street ��� Photo by David Horspool

 

By ADRIAN TAHOURDIN

Luton Airport, once immortalized in song by Lorraine Chase (apologies for the earworm) has recently had a lift in the form of an advertising campaign for easyJet (see above).

I���m a big fan of easyJet; I particularly appreciate its choice of cheap flights to hitherto inaccessible destinations on the Continent. But I can���t help feeling that something has gone wrong with the poster ad: ���L��ton��� (German) and Lut��n (Portuguese) are fine, but Luton��? (Or is it intended as a distant echo of the French alcoholic drink Dubonnet, which itself was the subject of a famous advertising campaign once?) I think they would have done better to go for Italian L��ton or Spanish Lut��n ��� both countries well represented on easyJet���s flight network after all. And you can imagine Spanish passengers arriving at Lut��n.

There���s a well-known, socially engaged sandwich chain with a French name. It eschews the necessary accents, but as its name is entirely in upper case that���s perhaps understandable. �� and �� can look awkward after all.

On the other hand, I���ve always been irritated by the high street bakery Delice de France. If you���re going to be pretentious then don���t forget to put an accent in the right place, otherwise the temptation is to pronounce it ���deliche���, Italian-style. So that should be D��lice de France. But, according to the website bakeryinfo.co.uk, they���re about to change their name to Coup de Pates.