While it is true that the name is widely recognised in the jewellery trade, it is often associated with Mr Ratner's dismissal of one of his own products as "crap" in 1991.

BBC: Ratner loses battle for name

The mobile Slingplayer client was, as always, seamless, and we were streaming widescreen video even on our crap-ass EDGE T-Mobile service in San Francisco with relative ease.

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If Morgan can be as direct and pithy in his nightly interviews as he was yesterday in cutting through years of corporate crap, he ought to do just fine.

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So why is Dvorak, noted tech pundit, and goader of Mac users and iPhone fans, reporting that he's got insider information that the iPhone's keyboard is complete crap and "people are going to return the phone in droves"?

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Townsend is clearly aware that he going to take a certain amount of crap for making this call, so he spends no little time in the report explaining his position, particularly as it comes on the eve of the first anniversary of the death of Steve Jobs.

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In 1991 it took just two words - "total crap" - from then chairman Gerald Ratner, who was describing one of the company's products, to torpedo consumer confidence and bring it to the brink of bankruptcy.

BBC: Renaming: Sleight of brand?

An infamous gaffe by the chain's founder, Gerald Ratner, in 1991 - when he described one of its wares as "total crap" - rendered the brand the disgrace of the jewellery trade.

BBC: Legal threat tarnishes Ratner comeback