100 Books I Keep Keeping... 24 Shop Horror
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Shop Horror: The Best of the Worst in British Shop Names by Guy Swillingham (2005)
feng_shui_house should really like this one {g}
So okay, puns may not be the most sophisticated form of wordplay, but when they're combined with naming names -? I love it. I ran across this when hunting on Amazon UK for something completely different, and just had to check it out...
It's very straightforward really - the author travelled round Britain's streets, found shops where the names were good, bad or wonderfully groan-worthy puns, and took pictures - sometimes talked to the owners about, well, why... but not always.
After all, who really needs to know why?
And then there is The Prawnbrokers, Fishcotheque and Northern Sole (fish shops), Abra Kebabra, Thai Tanic and Wok This Way (restaurants), Goodfillas (sandwich shop), Tan Tropez, Tanz-in-Ere and Browned Off (tanning salons), Herr Kutz, and Curling U Softly (hairdressers, of course), Eleventh Flower and Unto the Fuchsia (florists), Indivijewels and From Here To Maternity (go on, guess :) Have you stopped groaning now?
Maybe the lists of shop names in my other nomenclatural (yes that's a word and no, I don't absolutely know it's the right one and I don't care... much :) books, and the lists I am sure are on the web would do just as well. I don't care. I love them, I love the pictures, and I really rather love the book too. It makes me smile.