At one software company where I worked we pinched a VP from a large English client (Tesco). His first day at our HQ in Chicago he came bursting out of his office and asked the executive secretary pool if anyone had a rubber. You can bet they were chuckling about that for ages. "Things must be different in English offices," etc.


>I sort of collect bad translations
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>http://www.dribbleglass.com/Jokes/translations.htm
>http://badtranslations.alkaline.org/
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>I am also told even in bi-lingual Canada you get cookies that say in English 'without preservatives' but the French says 'sans preservatives' ( without condoms )
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>Australians call what Americans call Scotch tape 'Durex' - which is a brand of condoms in UK. (of course they don't see anything strange about putting rubbers on pencils. )
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>>>>>I saw this for the first time at Trader Joe's yesterday. The word sounds nauseous, and for those who know no better a beer to leave on the shelf! Yuck!
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>>>>As you probably know, Phuket is a city (town?) in Thailand, and I recently learned that the "P" and "h" are pronounced independently, not as a blend.
>>>>
>>>>Tamar
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>>>I recall a few years ago the Japanese introduced a model of a new car into the United States, and did not take into consideration what the name sounded like in our country. The name excapes me but it was not nice and was taken off of the market! :)
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>>My understandig is that GM tried to sell the Nova in Latin America and the name just wouldn't fly down there.
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>>I also seem to recall reading somewhere that Campbell's tried to market their "Big John" beans in French speaking Canada under the name of (something like) "Gros Jeans." Apparantly that's an idiom with an interesting translation.