Off-Topic! Odd Translations

[Amanda Lewanski]

No: HPFGUIDX 4782

Apologies for the off-topicness. In searching for the hard-to-pronounce
English thing for John Walton, I found a couple of things that I thought
you guys would appreciate (for some reason, I think Aberforth's Goat,
especially). I don't have all of your individual emails in my address
book. This is one of three.

--Amanda

 Subject: joke: language 1. The Dairy Association's huge success with
the campaign "Got Milk?" prompted them to expand advertising to Mexico.
It was soon brought to their attention the Spanish translation read "Are
you lactating?" 2. Coors put its slogan, "Turn It Loose," into Spanish,
where it was read as "Suffer From Diarrhea." 3. Scandinavian vacuum
manufacturer Electrolux used the following in an American campaign:
"Nothing sucks like an Electrolux." 4. Clairol introduced the "Mist
Stick," a curling iron, into Germany only to find out that "mist" is
slang for manure. Not too many people had use for the "Manure Stick." 5.
When Gerber started selling baby food in Africa, they used the same
packaging as in the US, with the smiling baby on the label. Later they
learned that in Africa, companies routinely put pictures on the labels
of what's inside, since many people can't read. 6. Colgate introduced a
toothpaste in France called Cue, the name of a notorious porno magazine.
7. An American T-shirt maker in Miami printed shirts for the Spanish
market which promoted the Pope's visit. Instead of "I Saw the Pope" (el
Papa), the shirts read "I Saw the Potato" (la papa). 8. Pepsi's "Come
Alive With the Pepsi Generation" translated into "Pepsi brings Your
Ancestors Back From the Grave" in Chinese. 9. The Coca-Cola name in
China was first read as "Kekoukela", meaning "Bite the wax tadpole" or
"female horse stuffed with wax", depending on the dialect. Coke then
researched 40,000 characters to find a phonetic equivalent "kokou kole",
translating into "happiness in the mouth." 10. Frank Perdue's chicken
slogan, "It takes a strong man to make a tender chicken" was translated
into Spanish as "it takes an aroused man to make a chicken
affectionate." 11. When Parker Pen marketed a ball-point pen in Mexico,
its ads were supposed to have read, "It won't leak in your pocket and
embarrass you. "The company thought that the word "embarazar" (to
impregnate pregnate) meant to embarrass, so the ad read: "It won't leak
in your pocket and make you pregnant" 12. When American Airlines wanted
to advertise its new leather first class seats in the Mexican market, it
translated its "Fly In Leather" campaign literally, which meant "Fly
Naked" (vuela en cuero) in Spanish. Add a classic. JFK, in his speech
before the Germans at the "Wall". "Ich bin ein Berliner!" Literally
translated, it means, "I am a jelly doughnut!"