And now for something very light but worthy of a good head-scratch: Adidas is advertising a mountain bike shoe called the “Hematoma.” It’s not black and blue, but black and white. 
I mean, is this good marketing? Would someone buy a biking shoe basically called “The Bruise”? Are people going to know what a hematoma is? I ran a google image on “The Hematoma” and got some pretty gruesome images. Apparently dogs get a lot of hematomas in their ears. Other running/biking shoe names by Adidas include “The Blockbuster,” “Hammer,” “Cyclone” and “Marathon.” I kind of get those, but Hematoma? Does it give you hematomas? Protect you from them?
My colleague and contributor to PEN Richard Atwood first brought this to my attention. He tells me the Hematoma comes with the price tag of $129.99. Ouch. “At that price,” Richard suggests, “your wallet will be severely bruised.”
2 thoughts on “The “Hematoma””
Funk & Wagnalls says
hematoma: Pathol. A blood tumor.
Laurie: Your mention of the Adidas Hematoma bike shoe caught my eye and I could not resist making a phone call. The Adidas Company told me all biking shoes are manufactured by Mavic and I was transferred to them. I asked the gentleman if he knew about the shoe called Hematoma; he thought so. I asked him if he knew what the word ment and his reply was that all shoes are named in France. I provided a one sentence explanation of hematoma and he thought it was a great name because “downhill mountain bike riders go really fast and they probably get lots of bruises”. I thanked him and hung up. Barbara Chang