| Jun-18-03 | | Ezely Nakhdov: I just wanted to say, "Middlefart?" |
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| Jun-19-03 | | Larsker: The real name is Middelfart. It's some 20 miles from where I live. http://www.middelfart.dk The word means "half way there". "Fart" means "travel". There's a little story concerning the different meanings of the word "fart" in Danish and in English. The British queen once visited Denmark and it is said - and maybe it's only an anecdote - that they had to make changes to all the elevators where a sign flashes "I fart" once the elevator is "In motion". Well, I don't know. Words in one language may have an offensive meaning in another language. Companies use language experts to find out whether names of new products could be offensive to users in Egypt or Japan or Brasil, etc. |
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| Jun-19-03 | | Ezely Nakhdov: In the 70s Chevrolet execs were dumbfounded when one of their bestselling models met with horribly low sales in Latin America. Then they were told that in Spanish, Nova meant, "It doesn't go." |
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| Jun-20-03 | | drukenknight: Then there is Colgate. Which loosely translated in Italian/spanish means "for your death." Col gato; or something like that. And the Coca cola truck being red got mortared in Afghanistan, so the Coca cola colors are green in Afghan. But the all time classic is considered the Frito song remember that one? The Frito Bandito (circa 1972). This amounted to the Mexican nat'l anthemn being replaced w/ lyrics about robbing. Did not go over well in Mexico. |
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| Jun-21-03 | | Ezely Nakhdov: Ah yes, the Frito Bandito! Ay yay, yay yay! I'm the Frito Bandito! Lol |
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| Jun-21-03 | | Bears092: <Companies use language experts to find out whether names of new products could be offensive to users in Egypt or Japan or Brasil, etc.> Larsker - They often fail, see http://www.engrish.com |
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| Jun-21-03 | | Jonber: Beside the point of this conversation perhaps, but a few years back an American pharmaceutical company wanted to expand their sale of painkillers to the Middle East. To overcome the language barrier they devised a marketing plan based on a billboard cartoon. The cartoon was simple enough, on the first picture you saw a man in visual pain holding his head; on the second he took a pill from a jar labelled with the companies name, and on the third the same man was happy and smiling. This cartoon was then placed on giant 4 by 8 meter billboards all over the Middle East. The trouble, off course, was that in Arabic countries people read, including cartoons, from the right and to the left, that is, the opposite way compared to the West… Just goes to show, you don’t need to know the language to screw up! |
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