Logo Literacy | Our children love Crystal Pepsi

According to Uncle John's Bathroom Reader (via a friend; I only ever read Wikipedia in the bathroom, thank you), a second grader can recognize up to 200 different name brands by logo alone.

This seems horrible. Coco-Cola and Mickey Mouse and Apple are more recognizable than, say, the word "theatrical." It makes perfect sense to me, though.

Chinese and Japanese are traditionally difficult written languages to learn, as are really any other non-phonetic language. I believe the classic number quoted is one needs to recognize something like 200,000 pictographs in order to be considered fluent in Chinese. An "illiterate" farmer may only comprehend up to 2,000 symbols.

Is it really so horrible to say our children are corporate whores by the time they're seven? Wouldn't it be more accurate to say that while you were failing to teach your children to be baby Einsteins fluent in English, German, French, Spanish, and Norwegian Standard Sign Language, they also managed to pick up a measly 200 words in a form of modern hieroglyphs still mostly representational of either initials, mascot characters, or brand-specific action images?

Hell, if anything it just shows that whoever designed those logos did their jobs masterfully and achieved successful brand recognition.

And if you want to argue with me, I'll be happy to sit down and discuss it over a New Coke and a McBMT.