I don’t know what’s worse, that someone would think Lolita would be an appropriate name for a bed marketed to young girls, or that the staff at Woolworths had no idea who Lolita was and didn’t know what the kerfuffle was about.
And why can’t they just rename the bed? Why pull it from the stores?
Holy crap! They say the American education system is crap? What’s next Linda Lovelace Pacifiers?
This is some kind of British version of April Fool’s right?
Right?
Please tell me I’m right. whimper
Right?
From the linked story:
If they are selling a brand from a third-party manufacturer/vendor, they cannot simply rename it. If the manufacturer/vendor actually intended the connection, they are pretty much at a loss. If the manufacturer/vendor was simply as clueless as (British) Woolworths*, then I would expect to see the bed remarketed under a new name, soon.
That’s public education for you, and ‘teaching to the test’.
Woolworth’s is still around?
Yeah, it still staggers on. Not much I’d want inside it, though.
Ha. I decided last night that I’d link to this article the next time the “stupid Americans” insult was tossed about. Apparently they turn out their share of morons in the UK too.
But I suppose it could have been worse, like a Gacy brand of clothing for boys…
John Holmes Pogo Sticks?
They didn’t know? That’s BS. If they didn’t know they wouldn’t have named the bed Lolita in the first place. Of all girl names in existence, they innocently, by happenstance, selected the one name that’s become synonymous with adolescent female sexuality, and the manufacturer, distributor, buyers, marketers, merchandise managers, Woolworth’s execs, product and project managers all had no knowledge of the association. Uh-huh. Yeah, okay. I believe that.
So you believe they wanted to shoot themselves in the foot? Or maybe they were stupid enough to think they were more clever than the rest of us and thought it would be an inside joke? I too have a hard time imagining nobody caught this but I have a harder time believing it was intentional. I remember some poor attempt at psyops by the Iraqi army when I was over there in the early nineties, they broadcast reports that Bart Simpson(!?) was sleeping with our girlfriends back home. Maybe with so much manufacturing in china this is a language/cultural mistake. But still, the first sales person in the furniture dept. at the store should have caught it.
They still sell the Catherine the Great bed with Horse Harness[sup]TM[/sup]
Maybe some ad exec’s daughter is named Lola, maybe Lolita as a nickname?
Lola, by The Kinks
I’m not sure that would have been a good choice, either.
Not in the U.S. but England still has 'em.
My bet is that somebody offered up “Lolita” as a joke, and when it was accepted he decided to see how far he could take the joke, but then chickened out of fessing up when it went too far.
I just don’t see how anybody could suggest “Lolita” as the name for anything without thinking of the Nabokov book. Seriously, has anyone ever heard the name in a different context? I’d Google “Lolita” to check but frankly I’m terrified of what kind of hits that search would get. I could maybe see people never having heard of “Lolita” before, but I don’t see how such a person could suggest the name in the first place.
Well, if it was from a Chinese or Far Eastern supplier, I could see why “lolita” would sound just like any other girls name - a bit like the “nigger brown” sofa cushions.
That’s doesn’t explain why the Woolies management allowed it in stores though, but the majority of Woolworths customers ain’t likely to read much Nabakov, to be fair. 
And there’s always
I think the girl in that famous book by Nabokov was actually named Dolores.
Apparently you’re right, but she was nicknamed Lolita.
ETA: Which is to say, in the book her nickname was Lolita.
Rysto - Actually, the results, on the first page, aren’t too scary - Wikipedia articles about the book, and the 1962 movie, IMDB pages for the movies, a link to someone’s YouTube video which I am too chicken to view, an Amazon link for the book, a review and a Sparknotes site for the book. Oh, and a mention of an NYC Bar named Lolita.
Which is why I’m not going to go past that first page. :eek: