Recently I wrote about place names around the world that are famous here because they sound funny in Japanese, the grand daddy of these being the town of Eromanga, Australia. (I am so going there someday.) In a similar way, it’s common for product names to have unintended meanings in other languages, something the Japanese run into occasionally (want some Collon cookies, anyone?). The Mitsubishi Pajero is a popular 4-wheel drive vehicle whose name means “wanker” in Spanish, and Honda’s Fit (also called Jazz) was supposed to be called Fitta until someone realized this is a very bad word in some Scandinavian countries. Whenever I’m in the supermarket I smile when I see the popular canned alcoholic beverage for women called Slat (pronounced “slut”). Of course, no matter what name a company picks for its product, it’s going to mean something naughty somewhere. One day J-List’s web designer, who is from France, was laughing at something he’d seen online about “petite bites,” which apparently means “small male organs” in French.
Small dicks. Big compliments.
