Which phrase begins with “y” and appears like an axe on this image?

I feel the producer of your son’s ball blended in a Swedish phrase:

Yxa

Swedish, n.: an axe

_{The {photograph} above is page 22 of the Swedish youngsters’s guide Vill du läsa I (“Would you prefer to learn [vol I]”) by painter Elsa Beskow. The J above it’s for julgran, the Swedish phrase for Christmas tree.}

I say this on the premise that:

1. I checked a number of thesauruses, such as you, in addition to Wikipedia’s category for axes, and whereas I discovered adze, chopper, cleaver, hatchet, mattock, tomahawk, twibill and so forth, I discovered nothing approaching a phrase with an preliminary y.
2. I used OneLook.com‘s reverse-dictionary performance to seek for “phrases beginning with a y and having a which means regarding axe“¹ and the one factor advised was yataghan: “an extended Turkish knife with a curved blade having a single edge”. An image search tells us that no ball-maker would confuse this sword-like blade for an axe.
3. Going one step additional, I checked Wikipedia’s comprehensive list of bladed weapons, and from all nations, all through all historical past, solely 3 begin with an preliminary y: yanmaodao (Chinese language), yari (Japanese), and yatagan (Turkish). These are all sword-like weapons, not axe-like, and as talked about within the earlier bullet, of the three, solely yatagan has made it into English dictionaries.
4. I used an internet software named Translatr to translate each axe and hatchet into 90+ languages, and cross-checked these with the handbook translations on Wiktionary, and actually the one phrase of these ~200 choices which began with a y was Swedish yxa.

Cross-checking the interpretation from Swedish again into English confirmed that Swedish yxa is English axe. And certainly it’s utilized in Swedish youngsters’s primers for instance the letter y, as you may see from the kids’s guide excerpt above.

As for the opposite symbols on the ball, we will analyze which letter-symbol pairings make sense in every language. Right here I’ve tagged every pairing with ✅ to point “the identify a toddler would shout out for the depicted object begins with the corresponding letter”, ❌ for “no, it would not”, and ❓ for “this pairing deserves additional dialogue”.

In English, the pairings are Apple✅, Bear✅, Cat✅, Dog✅, Elephant✅, Frog✅, Giraffe✅, House✅, Ice✅, Jet✅, Okayangaroo✅, Lion✅, Mouse✅, Nail✅, Owl✅, Pig✅, Queen✅, Rainbow✅, Snail✅, Tiger✅, Uboat❓, Volcano✅, Worm✅, Xylophone✅, Y / axe❌, Zebra✅.

In Swedish, these correspond to Äpple❌, Björn✅, Okayatt❌, Hund❌, Elefant✅, Groda❌, Giraff✅, Hus✅, Is✅, Jet✅, Okayänguru✅, Lejon✅, Mus✅, Spik❓², Uggla❌, Gris❌, Drottning❌, Regnbåge✅, Snigel✅, Tiger✅, Ubåt✅, Vulkan✅, Mask❌³, Xylofon✅, Yxa✅, Zebra✅.

As you may see, as a result of most of those phrases

• are loanwords to each languages (like kangaroo or giraffe), or
• are loanwords from English to Swedish (like jet[plane]), or
• have [proto-]Germanic roots shared by each English and Swedish (like home and mouse), or
• are fully synthetic coinages (like xylophone)

most pairings are smart in each languages.

All advised, in Swedish there are 8 phrases which merely don’t match, to not point out that, as @jkej points out, a Swedish ball would additionally must current the letters Å, Ä and Ö, and may select to omit W. This guidelines out the likelihood that it is a ball made for the Swedish market.

For English, alternatively, exterior the mysterious Y, all of the pairings use easy, non-suspicious widespread nouns an English-speaking toddler can be accustomed to⁴.

Aside from one. That U-boat is Swedish-fishy.

Virtually nobody refers to submarines as U-boats in modern English. Quoting @tchrist’s response to that info:

… particularly how a submarine or “U-boat” image that acquired used for the U, given how unusual a phrase for a sub that U-boat is in English nowadays — and to a toddler reasonably than to a great-grandfather who would possibly truly keep in mind them.

Which is proof in opposition to the maker of the ball being fully accustomed to English as she is spoke.

There’s additionally optimistic proof for “U” is for “U-boat” in Swedish youngsters’s primers. Quoting @jkej in the comments:

The submarine could possibly be seen as circumstantial proof (though not very sturdy) for some type of Swedish mix-up rationalization. Though U-boat is an English phrase, it appears a bit unusual to make use of it on this context. However in Swedish ubåt is the one phrase for submarine.

I used Google Picture to look at some English alphabet posters and it appeared like virtually all of them used umbrella or unicorn for U, however none of them used a U-Boat. Equally, I discovered a number of Swedish alphabet posters with ubåt for U, though uggla (owl) was extra widespread. I may verify that yxa was quite common for Y.

And certainly it is easy to show up Swedish pedagogical materials having each Y = yxa and U = ubåt, like this one from the Swedish website imgrum.com:

However it would not cease there.

Following @jkej’s lead on Fishpond.com, I discovered the producer is Ball, Bounce and Sport Inc.⁵

That is web page 32 of their online catalog (it is advisable to set up Adobe Flash; their PDF catalog is damaged⁶):

_{Merchandise G: 54-4155; #10 A-Z Phonics; 0-33149 04155-9}

Nonetheless, although Fishpond.com listed “Ball, Bounce and Sport Inc.” because the ball’s producer, upon visiting BB&S’ website, one instantly notices the headers and duplicate all instantly level to a different identify:

Structurally, Ball, Bounce and Sport Inc. was as soon as a subsidiary of Hedstrom, and thru a collection of suits and begins within the final century, ultimately took ownership of the Hedstrom brand, and now’s doing business as Hedstrom.

That’s, Hedstrom is the ball producer’s most well-liked identify for branding functions. Which is attention-grabbing, as a result of the identify “Hedstrom” is Scandinavian; per Wikipedia’s article on the surname:

Hedstrom, Hedström and Hedstrøm are surnames of Swedish and Norwegian origin

So is the identify Hedstrom indicative of Swedish influences on the ball’s manufactoring course of?

The Sensible Enterprise article linked above on BBS taking possession of the the Hedstrom model notes:

BBS owns 98 % of U.S. and Canadian rubber ball markets and a rising proportion of the rotational molding market.

No point out of worldwide markets. Nonetheless, one affect I can discover of non–North American pursuits in Hedstrom is that these sources verify that manufacturing is finished in Asia, as different solutions and feedback counsel:

BB&S’s Hedstrom Leisure Division makes play balls and different toys in Asia

However what about Sweden? I’ve learn several different histories of Hedstrom. The accounts are complicated and at factors seemingly contradictory, involving many identify adjustments.

However the salient event was in 1981:

Eagle Rubber began making balloons out of a storage in 1916. The corporate grew and spawned an trade that led to Ashland changing into the balloon capital of the world. The corporate ultimately added traces of plastic play balls. It was purchased out by Hedstrom Inc. in 1981, which went bankrupt in 2004.

But when Eagle was the corporate who constructed up the play ball enterprise, whence the the buying firm, Hedstrom? In keeping with this column of Harry Rinker, who’s an antiques appraiser and thereby considerably of an historian:

Carl H. Hedstrom, E. Gustaf Hedstrom, Knute W. Hedstrom, Wilfred P. Shuffleton, and Walter Beaman based the Hedstrom Firm, Gardner, Massachusets in 1915.
…
The Hedstrom Company nonetheless exists. Its Bedford plant produces out of doors gymnasium units, play balls, toys, and many others. The Dotham operation is toy targeted.

Thus the identify Hedstrom originates from three Swedes in 1915. The catalog above is dated ~2012, and web page 32 lists a number of of the playballs as new, however not the phonics one, so it isn’t clear when the ball was first produced. However definitely a century handed between the rationale for naming the corporate Hedstrom and producing the ball.

So, with a century and numerous mergers, bankruptcies, and restructurings intervening, the Swedish identify Hedstrom, whereas intriguing, can’t be adduced as proof that the Y stands for yxa.

I reached out to Hedstrom by way of their on-line contact type, Twitter, and Fb. They replied to me this morning by way of Fb:

They verify your ball will not be an official Hedstrom A-Z Phonics ball. The official ball has a yo-yo for the letter Y. The Hedstrom ball additionally has a UPC and producer’s mark.

Additional, Hedstrom confirms they do no enterprise internationally (exterior Canada, one assumes), they usually’re not conscious of any particular producers who’ve a recognized historical past of copying their designs.

A second customer support consultant truly responded individually to my contact by way of their web site, as a substitute of Fb. She did her personal forensics, and corroborated that Hedstrom’s opinion is that it is a knock-off ball:

Thanks for visiting our web site and on your on-line inquiry about an ABC Playball. Sadly, I don’t consider this ball was manufactured by Hedstrom. I’ve attached an image from our QA files of our ball on your reference. A few of the issues that tip me off that this isn’t our ball are the elephant and kangaroo colours. Additionally, there’s significantly extra white house on you ball whereas ours has extra designs. So, only for enjoyable, I visited our samples division hoping to search out this ball and I used to be capable of finding and inflate a pattern of our ball. Our playball has a Yo-Yo for the letter “Y”. One other manner you may inform is whether or not or not there’s an official Hedstrom authorized patch. This patch would comprise our identify, Hedstrom Company, our tackle, our web site, made in China in three completely different languages, a UPC barcode with the quantity 0-33149-04155-9 and a four-digit date code. Our inflation valve ought to be hid within the Robotic “R” image, too. I am undecided in case your ball has our authorized patch or not or the place your inflation valve is situated, however these are just some of the best way we determine our merchandise. It is most likely not unattainable for an additional producer to search out and use our designs as these are reasonably outdated for us and usually are not licensed or trademarked.

Hope that helps remedy the thriller for you. However we’re of the opinion that it is a knock off and never an official Hedstrom produced playball.

One final follow-up, and she or he shared the historical past of the ball, to the extent she was in a position to dig up:

The information that I can nonetheless entry inform me we created this ball in 2004 and first bought it in 2005. The final one was bought in 2008. Our information don’t point out ‘who’ may need been the designer on the time.

In order that path runs chilly. The ball is a knock-off. Let’s look at it in additional element for clues.

Certainly, further evaluation reveals that your ball and the Hedstrom ball are very related, however not similar. There are some variations which must be taken into consideration.

Particularly, @H Walters points out that the structure — that’s, the positions of the symbols relative to at least one one other — are completely different in your {photograph} than within the catalog thumbnail for the Hedstrom ball:

Okay and E are shared designs between the 2 pictures. The neighborhood round Okay and E are very completely different, nevertheless; within the OP picture Okay and E are adjoining and at every others’ “9 o’clock” (E being oriented otherwise); Q is at Okay‘s 6, and Y at Okay’s 7. Within the catalog Okay and E aren’t even adjoining; we will see E‘s complete neighborhood (from 1 to 12: BMDGHL), and Okay‘s neighborhood that may be seen is JIDA. So on the very least, in the event that they’re the identical ball, Okay and E are repeated, which makes little sense.

And, as @m69 further points out:

It is not simply that the lay-out is completely different; have a look at which a part of the letter E is roofed by the elephant’s ear; that is completely different too.

Observe additionally that within the photograph of the ball that Hedstrom despatched me, V is used for vase, not volcano, R is for robotic, not rainbow, and the drawing of the nail for N is a barely completely different fashion than in your ball.

Lastly, at @jkej’s prompting:

It could add to the “circumstantial” proof if we might discover out the total set of images/phrases used on the unique Hedstrom ball. Significantly, it could be very attention-grabbing if we might verify that:

1. All phrases that aren’t smart in English (i.e. Yxa and U-boat) had been absent from the unique.
2. All phrases not smart in Swedish had been current on the unique.

If (2) holds it’s attainable that each one phrases added to the knock-off had been taken from a Swedish supply. Given the images of the unique that we have already got, we solely want to substantiate that Owl, Queen and Worm had been on the unique to show (2).

I requested my contact at Hedstrom, and she or he replied:

The ‘U’ has a purple and white UMBRELLA. The ‘O’ has a brown and yellow OWL. The ‘Q’ has a QUEEN with white hair and a yellow crown with purple & blue jewels. And ‘W’ is an orange and purple WORM.

Primarily based on this, @jkej’s evaluation is:

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I would prefer to underscore that I feel the reply from Hedstrom was a BIG step ahead. It might seem to be a lifeless finish, however it conclusively tells us that A) the images on the ball got here from two distinctly separate sources, B) the overall impression of an English ball may be totally defined by one of many sources, C) the images from the second supply are higher defined in Swedish. These had been issues we might solely speculate about earlier than.

So a third-party made a knock-off model of the ball, common in Asian manufacture, and launched these variations, and maybe picked up some Swedish contagion within the course of.

To verify that, we’ll have to choose up the scent of this mysterious DNE you discovered close to the valve of your ball.

However to try this, we’ve to begin on the different finish of the path. I’ve reached out to Lojas França by way of electronic mail and Fb. The e-mail bounced, however there’s nonetheless hope they’re going to reply on Fb.

In the meantime, an informant, @Brad Koch, has it from some good sources in shady corners of the web that the ball has been discovered. From @thedrake on HackerNews:

I discovered the BALL producer!!!!
https://www.alibaba.com/product-detail/Alphabets-print-ball_573748097.html

And what will we spy within the SW and SE corners of the suitable picture (zoom in):

• Y:
• U:

Our suspects! Hiding in China, proper the place our intelligence mentioned they’d be. And all the opposite pictures match as properly.

Now to trace down the producer of those knock-off balls.

From the Alibaba hyperlink, we discover (one) producer of those balls is Shanghai Jianhuiling Sporting Items Co., Ltd. Monitoring down the markets they operate in leads us to:

Nature of Enterprise: Exporter‚ Producer
Trade: Toys & Video games
Product/Service Vary: Toys and Video games
Main Market(s):
• Japanese Europe
• Western Europe

So whereas Hedstrom will not be chargeable for the axe in your ball, there’s one final piece of proof that Y=yxa.

We discover the ball once more on a Swedish user’s Pinterest page.

In reality, this one in all only 3 sites I might discover anyplace on the Web with a picture of your ball⁷.

In spite of everything this, one factor is definite. Because the authentic designer of the ball, an American firm whose workers are native audio system of English, used yo-yo for instance y, we all know the supposed phrase will not be English.

General, adulteration of the ball with Swedish phrases appears indicated, although removed from definitive.

However it’s the perfect idea I’ve acquired. Besides after all for @Vincent Fourmond’s conclusion that we’re dealing right here with a yakety axe.

¹ _{I additionally tried “and associated to”: hatchet, chop, and reduce, despite the fact that the latter two phrases are verbs and all the opposite symbols on the kid’s ball characterize concrete nouns. Nothing materials emerged.}

² _{We might make a case for N additionally becoming for Swedish, as @konaya points out, by observing the depicted object might as simply be a tack, which is nubb in Swedish.}

³ _{Observe that the E and Okay that are on the northermost latitude within the {photograph} have completely different orientations, and the image all the time has the identical orientation as its letter (i.e., the highest of the image exhibits you the place the highest of the letter is) so there isn’t any concern that the W for worm is likely to be M for maggot or something.}

I say this as a result of I puzzled for a second whether or not the illustrator mistook Y for an upside-down h in hatchet.

⁴ _{Which, taken as a holistic sample, makes the yellow idea very dubious.}

⁵ _{Since this query was requested, the Fishpond.com product web page has been eliminated, with no redirect. Seemingly that is because of the the recognition of this query inflicting many individuals to hit that web page (which listed an out-of-stock merchandise), inflicting pointless load from their perspective. However through shrewd parameter hacking, @biolauri acquired Google to serve up a cached version. A screenshot is available here, for when the cache inevitably will get flushed and in addition disappears.}

_{With the cached Fishpond.com web page in hand, @H Walters did some source snooping and observed a variety of references to the identical quantity as within the Fishpond.com URL: 0033149041559. Many of those references had been meta tags and hidden enter fields, variously labelled barcode as in <enter kind="hidden" identify="barcode" worth="0033149041559" id="barcode" /> or gtin13 as in <meta itemprop='gtin13' content material="0033149041559" />. It additionally precisely matches the code within the catalog (see caption underneath catalog screenshot; there it’s listed in element type Indicator-Company Prefix–Item Reference-Check Digit), and a barcode search confirms the corporate prefix 0033149 is certainly owned by Ball, Bounce and Sport Inc.}

_{An attention-grabbing discrepancy, nevertheless. Whereas the Fishpond.com and BBS catalog barcode merchandise reference match (04155), the related “half numbers” don’t. The catalog exhibits 54-4155: that’s, group quantity 54 (probably “adorned play balls”), species 4155 (similar as bar code merchandise reference, much less the main 0). However Fishpond.com exhibits Different Info: 54-4246T, which is identical group quantity (54, adorned play balls), however a unique species 4246T.}

⁶ _{And we additionally know the wholesale value per dozen as of April 2013 was $1.77, due to this price sheet (file identify “HedstromSpecialtyPriceListApril2013.xls”) tracked down by @Mari-Lou’s UPC hunting skills.}

_{Observe that the UPC / barcode is identical as within the catalog, 0-33149-04155-9, however the merchandise quantity differs. The ~2012 catalog has 54-4155, however the 2013 value record has 54-41554. This can be a typo, or it might be further substantiation that one UPC could also be used for various variations of the product.}

⁷ _{One potential danger right here is that the Pinterest.se web page was dynamically generated only for me, based mostly on cookies set through the course of my analysis into “Swedish” and a younger kid’s toy. Observe the Swedish header interprets to only a generic a “try these superb merchandise”, and all of the merchandise supplied are to toys for younger youngsters, associated to studying, and all of the descriptions are in English. However I feel the chance right here is low: I discovered the positioning by means of a reverse picture search on Google, which suggests it pre-existed my analysis.}