office space - Are the fictitious names “Initech” and “Intertrode” a play on words? - Movies & TV

itemprop="text">

In the comedy Office
Space, the protagonist works for a company called "Initech". At the end of
the film, his co-workers take jobs at a competing company called
"Initrode".

It seems that these names
are meant to sound silly, but can someone here tell me if these fictitious names may
also be some sort of word-play?

class="post-text" itemprop="text">

class="normal">Answer

I believe
the "ini" is supposed to be the phonetic equivalent of the word "any." So the people are
working for "any tech" company. "Trode" is short for electrode. As something that often
plugs into something else, trode could reference a cubicle worker that can easily be
plugged in to a new work environment. Not surprisingly, trode also apparently references
a part of the male anatomy (see Urban Dictionary). In the movie, Peter mistakenly calls
it Penetrode.