Tricky Words in this week's OVI

The "wide range of makes of car" in the Opatovská Rally makes me think about the differences between the words "make", "brand", "trade mark" and "logo", because all of them could be translated in context either with "znak" or "značka". Make means "značka" in the sense of "výroba", mainly in connection with technical products such as cars, motorbikes, bicycles, computers, TV's, hi-fi's, or espresso machines.
Brand means "značka" for consumables, things we eat, drink and use around the house, such as frozen fries, coffee, whisky, washing powder, or furniture polish. Trade mark means the specially-designed symbol which everyone associates with a particular make or brand - the three-pointed star for Mercedes, the Nike "swoosh", or the eagle for Mattoni, for example. A logo could sometimes be understood as a trade mark, but it could also be specially designed for a specific event, like the various designs for different Olympic Games since the 1960's. What do you think of the London 2012 logo, by the way?

Andy's Wordshop

Midsummer's Day, or St. John's Day. Here we go again, another astronomically significant day of the year, originally celebrated by pagan peoples all around the world, has been given new significance by Christians, who attached the feast of St. John to that day. June 21 is the exact day of the summer solstice, the day when the "sun stands still", the longest day of the year. As with Christmas, the celebrations come a couple of days later, because St. John's Day is June 24. John is a very common man's name, so a lot of men have the opportunity to celebrate on that day too. What is interesting is that in many countries around the world, but especially in northern ones, the typical celebration centers on a bonfire (vatra in Slovak), as if the sun shines through the night as well. St. John in this case means St. John the Baptist (allegedly born six months before Jesus), who was called Ivan Kupala in Old Russian.