Logowatch Those of delicate linguistic sensibilities are advised to look away as we report today that the Siemens tentacle previous known as Siemens Healthcare has gone under the surgeon's rebranding knife and emerged as the quite remarkable Siemens Healthineers.

According to head honcho healthineer Bernd Montag: "Our new name is a bold signal for our ambition and expresses our identity as a people company – 45,000 employees worldwide who are passionate about empowering healthcare providers to optimally serve their patients."

In a letter to customers, a copy of which just happened to land on the El Reg LogoWatch desk yesterday, Montag further explained: "With our new name, we express our ambition to shape the future of healthcare together with you. Our new name marks the beginning of this journey whereby we intend to build upon our key attributes: engineering and pioneering healthcare – key words that define the people working in our company."

They do indeed, because at the foot of said letter is the motto "Engineering success. Pioneering healthcare". Evidently, some Strategy Boutiqueer considered it not much of a stretch to imagine that those delivering pioneering healthcare should henceforth be heralded as healthineers - an idea not without medical precedent, as the informal description of gynaecologists as "privateers" shows.

However, the result is an illegitimate neologism so hideous that it would have been a mercy had it died on the operating table. ®

Bootnote

Thanks to reader Rob for flagging up this vid of the Healthineers anthem. No further comment is required...