And more hilarious news: Something wrong in the car industry

From: bbc.co.uk

Buick 'masturbation' car renamed

Red-faced officials at General Motors in Canada have been forced to think of a new name for their latest model after discovering it was a slang word for masturbation.

GM officials said they had been unaware that LaCrosse was a term for self-gratification among teenagers in French-speaking Quebec.

They are now working on a new name for the LaCrosse in Canada. The car will go on sale next year to replace the Buick Regal.

The mix-up is reminiscent of another GM vehicle with an unfortunate name.

In the 1970s, GM exported its Chevrolet Nova to Mexico and other Spanish-speaking countries, only to be told that Nova translated into "doesn't go".

More recently, Mitsubishi had to change the name of its Pajero model in Spanish speaking countries, where the word is a slang term for "masturbator".

While Toyota's Fiera proved controversial in Puerto Rico, where fiera translated to "ugly old woman".

And Ford didn't have the reception it expected in Brazil when their Pinto car flopped.

They then discovered that in Brazilian Portuguese slang, pinto means "small penis".

Ford has been unlucky in the UK as well. Here, the adult magazine titles Escort and Fiesta are the namesakes of two of its best-known models.

 

And what does his name mean in Swedish?
I know that Julio (sp?) Iglesias had a bit of a trouble in Russia with his adverts, because his first name reminds of a Russian word for penis.

 

pitt being slang for cock in swedish - so the same for brad as for julio

 

In the case of cars, I suppose it would be an embarassment to brag that your friend owned a brand spankin' new Ford 'small penis' Pinto. :lol:

 

Re: And more hilarious news: Something wrong in the car indu

And what's wrong with taking a ride in those?

 

This is off the subject , but monkeypunch, you are the monkeypunch that is in the Fan Graveyard, right? You know, the secret location in Arcanum.

 

Well, it seems that the hardest part of car-making is naming... Is Julio really a Russian word for penis? You know, it's a rather common name for men... Besides, it's the name of a month in Spanish - July. :-o

 

I don't consider having a name that is a month or other time/weather event to be odd. I've known some Skies and Summers, although I've yet to meet a Fall or a Spring. :/

 

It's quite similiar except for the "o" at the end. Strange for there were no such problems in Poland and I assume it's the same word.

 

Let's see, I've met a couple of Summers, one Winter, two Augusts and quite a few Easters. Oh and a Larch. (Lærke)

-Stuart

 

Well in Russian transcription the name Julio is usually pronounced and written starting with a H. Because of phonetic differences, some foreign names often suffer slight changes when written down in Cyrillic alphabet. The name Herbert, for example, starts with a G, Thomas is written and pronounced Tomas, "f" and "v" may often be interchangeable and so on.

 

Yeah, and Solaris, correct if I'm wrong, but isn't there no "h" sound in Russian. It's always "g," right?" So the word must be "guli" or "gulio" or something, no? It was pretty funny when I went to Warsaw for a day, and everone at the pubs was saying "ty kurwo." It's the same word in Czech, but nobody would say that here. They flip out if they so much as hear the word. Here they say "ty vole" -- "you ox." Hey Poles, is pic'a the same word in Polish as Czech? Peaches are such a yummy fruit.

BTW, kurwa/kurva means fucker, I think. Pic'a, pronounced "peach-a" means, er, forgive me American females who hate this word, but cunt. Plenty of fun buying fruit before you learn the language here...

 

i can understand the misconception though, peaches and cunts are both juicy and fuzzy etc. the only differences are taste, and where they grow... uke:

 

No, there is a H sound. Lots of H sound. Most of the obscene stuff starts with a H sound.

In Russian slang "kurwa" is more or less equivalent to "bitch". An offensive way to speak of a female. I tihnk it was borrowed from Polish through either Belorussian or Ukrainian.

 

I know that's not odd; what I meant was that having a month name that means "penis" (in Russian) is odd. By the way, the name Julio comes from Julius Caesar's name.