Exercise 5: Test your knowledge

First, load the library stringr and create a new car vector:

library(stringr)
cars <- c("VW", "Mercedes-Benz", "BMW", "Audi", "Opel", "Skoda", "Ford", "Seat", "Cupra", "Hyundai", "Renault", "Fiat", "Toyota", "Peugeot", "Volvo")

Task 1

You have a list of the most popular cars in Europe (according to car buyers in 2021). Marketers believe that the secret to product sales is a catchy name, often between 3 and 4 letters. Is this true? Try to find out how long the brands’ names are.

Task 2

Some brands cheat: They actually have very long names and use acronyms to make their brand more catchy. Let’s expose them! Replace all acronyms with the real brand name, i.e., VW = Volkswagen and BMW = Bayerische Motoren Werke.

Task 3

There is proof that some sounds are cacophonic, such as voiced fricatives (/f/,/v/,/s/,/z/,/h/), while others are regarded euphonic, such as vowels (/a/, /e/) and liquids (/l/, /r/) (see here). Marketers sometimes recommend not to use cacophonic sounds in brand names. Find all car brands that use cacophonic sounds despite these warnings.

Task 4

How many cacophonic sounds are used in these brand names, i.e., are there any brands that use (at least) two cacophonic sounds?

Task 5

Which brand names begin with a cacophonic sound?

Task 6

Which brand names end with a cacophonic sound?

Task 7

Let’s correct those cacophonic brand names by replacing all cacophonic sounds with a liquid sound. Let’s replace all inner cacophonic sounds with /l/ and all cacophonic sounds that start a brand name with /R/.

When you are ready to look at the solutions, see here: Solutions for Exercise 5.