A prime example is the designation of military property, such as the idiotic Mk system or the M1 system. In the U.S. military there are approximately 527 items that have been known as the M1, necessitating further words and numbers in order to seperate them. In the Britich military, you can sleep in a Mk III* tent, eat a Mk III** ration, and wipe yourself with MkIII*** bog paper.

Then there is the truly idiotic separation of things that do not need to be separated, as in the U.S. Army, where a No.2 lead pencil is an M14A3, while the No.3 pencil is an M27. Wah!

Another peeve of mine is the naming of automobiles and trucks. Doesn't anyone who went to school have the sense to rise up into the advertising councils or the legistlature and tell the idiots at Ford, Jaguar, Daimler, Nissan, Toyota, Peugeot, and Porsche that marketibility dictates simplicity?

Henry Ford was on the right track with the Model T. But that is not enough. It requires a certain amount of perspicacity to tell the difference between one similarly sloped melted soapbar car and another. Is this the aim of the designers? Why can't one maker sue the others for plagiarisation? Because they are all stealing from the same antecedents, whom they drove out of business decades ago.

I am surrounded by idiots who drive Intrepids but have no idea they is named after a battleship. Nor do the weasels who skiv around in Sequoias have any clue that they are named after a tree that was named after a Cherokee Icon and the fact that their SUV is named after a Cherokee is a half laugh at the Jeep proto-SUV (which has been around longer than most) called ta-da! the "Cherokee" (not to be confused with the GRAND Cherokee which is nothing of the sort).

Back in the bad old days, Studebaker marketted two very similar vehicles with what were to them very similar names. One was called the 'President' and the other was called the 'Dictator'. Guess which model needed a name change real soon after introduction?