Chevy Vega in South/Latin America
a...@b2pi.com
South America ("How can you sell a car called "Does Not Go"). I'm convinced this
was debunked, but can't find a reference to it on snopes.com. Does anyone recall
the story on this?
Cheers
Hatunen
With a name like "Vega" it ought to be a tractor, not a car.
************* DAVE HATUNEN (hat...@cox.net) *************
* Tucson Arizona, out where the cacti grow *
* My typos & mispellings are intentional copyright traps *
Ichimusai
> It wasn't Vega but Nova.
>
> Claim: The Chevrolet Nova sold poorly in Spanish-speaking countries
> because its name translates as "doesn't go" in Spanish.
>
> Status: False.
> <http://www.snopes.com/business/misxlate/nova.asp>
Honda has made a few mistakes like that, did not Pajero coume out as a
slang word for masturbation in Spanish? Or was that yet another of
those legends.
I know the model Fitta was renamed for the scandinavian market though.
(Fitta means "cunt" in Sweden, Norway, Denmark and possibly other
Scandinavian areas).
--
Ichimusai - Have no car. Go by train.
HWM
> Honda has made a few mistakes like that, did not Pajero coume out as a
> slang word for masturbation in Spanish? Or was that yet another of
> those legends.
>
> I know the model Fitta was renamed for the scandinavian market though.
> (Fitta means "cunt" in Sweden, Norway, Denmark and possibly other
> Scandinavian areas).
And Huyndai sells a "Sonata" because "sonta" is cowshit here.
--
Cheers, HWM
henry.w @ sanet.fi
Nathan Tenny
Ichimusai wrote:
> Honda has made a few mistakes like that, did not Pajero coume out as a
> slang word for masturbation in Spanish? Or was that yet another of
> those legends.
That's Mitsubishi, not Honda, and yes, "pajero" means...well, it doesn't
quite mean "wanker", because "wanker" is an insult first and a literal
term for "someone who masturbates" second. It might be best translated
as "jacker-off".
The Pajero is therefore called the Montero in Spanish-speaking markets,
including the USA. What I can't figure out is where the name came from
in the first place; does it mean something else in some other language?
NT
--
Nathan Tenny | Space is where your ass is.
Qualcomm, Inc., San Diego, CA | -William S. Burroughs
<nten...@qualcomm.com> |
HWM
> The Pajero is therefore called the Montero in Spanish-speaking markets,
> including the USA. What I can't figure out is where the name came from
> in the first place; does it mean something else in some other language?
Not necessarily, the Japanese come up with loads of engrish-sounding
names such as "Pokari Sweat" all the time.
R H Draney
>
>Ichimusai wrote:
>
>> Honda has made a few mistakes like that, did not Pajero coume out as a
>> slang word for masturbation in Spanish? Or was that yet another of
>> those legends.
>>
>> I know the model Fitta was renamed for the scandinavian market though.
>> (Fitta means "cunt" in Sweden, Norway, Denmark and possibly other
>> Scandinavian areas).
Some inappropriate auto names get through and nobody says a word...I'm thinking
of the Reliant...most manufacturers have seen the light and now name their
vehicles with random strings of letters and digits, although even this isn't
foolproof as the "MR-2" became "merdeux" (="shitty") in French....
>And Huyndai sells a "Sonata" because "sonta" is cowshit here.
R H "what I said was, the orchestra will now play a Franck sonata" Draney
Nathan Tenny
R H Draney <dado...@earthlink.net> wrote:
[...]
>as the "MR-2" became "merdeux" (="shitty") in French....
...and some people call it "Mister Two" in English, which while not exactly
insulting clearly isn't the name the manufacturers thought they were giving
it.
I don't remember who it was, but someone from AFU seemed gratifyingly
perturbed, years ago, when I pointed out that in precisely the style of
the "Nova" story, the Ford Aspire should remind you of angry serpents.
>>And Huyndai sells a "Sonata" because "sonta" is cowshit here.
>
>R H "what I said was, the orchestra will now play a Franck sonata" Draney
Franckly, my dear, this orchestra sounds like cowshit.
Ichimusai
> [piggybacked]
>
> Ichimusai wrote:
>> Honda has made a few mistakes like that, did not Pajero coume out
>> as a slang word for masturbation in Spanish? Or was that yet
>> another of those legends.
>
> That's Mitsubishi, not Honda, and yes, "pajero" means...well, it
> doesn't quite mean "wanker", because "wanker" is an insult first and
> a literal term for "someone who masturbates" second. It might be
> best translated as "jacker-off".
Ah, thanks for the explanation and correction of brand :)
> The Pajero is therefore called the Montero in Spanish-speaking
> markets, including the USA. What I can't figure out is where the
> name came from in the first place; does it mean something else in
> some other language?
It does not have to mean anything, just sound cool in Japan usually.
--
Ichimusai
Shakib Otaqui
> [...]
> Some inappropriate auto names get through and nobody says a word...I'm thinking
> of the Reliant...most manufacturers have seen the light and now name their
> vehicles with random strings of letters and digits, although even this isn't
> foolproof as the "MR-2" became "merdeux" (="shitty") in French....
> [...]
Rolls Royce almost fell into the same trap until someone
pointed out the meaning of their proposed Silver Mist model in
German.
--
Burroughs Guy
> Some inappropriate auto names get through and nobody says a word...I'm
thinking
> of the Reliant...most manufacturers have seen the light and now name
their
> vehicles with random strings of letters and digits, although even this
isn't
> foolproof as the "MR-2" became "merdeux" (="shitty") in French....
Pontiac had a "600SE", which in some type fonts it looked like "Goose".
As far as the Nova is concerned, I'm sure it looked like "No go" to some
people. How many sales that cost them is impossible to quantify. There's
a Korean company which is managing to sell cars under the acronym for
"killed in action".
Last year, Popeye's Chicken changed their logo. It's still seven letters
in haphazard looking positions, but the "E" is closer to the "Y" for the
benefit of those of us who read the prior logo as "POPE YES".
--
Burroughs "biting the wax tadpole" Guy
I knew the MCP when it was just a chess program.
Bob Ward
<BurroughsG...@aol.com> wrote:
>-:R H Draney wrote:
>-:
>-:> Some inappropriate auto names get through and nobody says a word...I'm
>-:thinking
>-:> of the Reliant...most manufacturers have seen the light and now name
>-:their
>-:> vehicles with random strings of letters and digits, although even this
>-:isn't
>-:> foolproof as the "MR-2" became "merdeux" (="shitty") in French....
>-:
>-:Pontiac had a "600SE", which in some type fonts it looked like "Goose".
>-:
>-:As far as the Nova is concerned, I'm sure it looked like "No go" to some
>-:people. How many sales that cost them is impossible to quantify. There's
>-:a Korean company which is managing to sell cars under the acronym for
>-:"killed in action".
>-:
>-:Last year, Popeye's Chicken changed their logo. It's still seven letters
>-:in haphazard looking positions, but the "E" is closer to the "Y" for the
>-:benefit of those of us who read the prior logo as "POPE YES".
I remember hearing radio spots for the Mercury Mistake...
--
The time for action is past! NOW is the time for the senseless bickering
Henry Polard
HWM <henry.w_EGGS@SPAM_sanet.fi> wrote:
Ahhh, the "sonta" clause.
-- Henry "a poisonous German gift" Polard
Alan J Rosenthal
>I know the model Fitta was renamed for the scandinavian market though.
>(Fitta means "cunt" in Sweden, Norway, Denmark and possibly other
>Scandinavian areas).
For those who just came in, of course companies choose different product names
in different markets, for a variety of reasons.
The UL is that a company *failed* to do this. That they named a product
something which would be instantly perceived by the natives as horrendously
insulting to the product, somehow managing to instigate distribution in a
given country without actually having anyone in the country helping out.
E.g.
> Rolls Royce almost fell into the same trap until someone
> pointed out the meaning of their proposed Silver Mist model in
> German.
This is a typical citing, having the weasel word "almost". I don't know
what it means to "almost" name a product something. I think that they
probably consulted a German speaker about the German name for their product.
But other typical citings claim completion of the naming and a result of zero
sales. Oh, the embarrassment.
The "engrish" phenomenon is not an example of this ULish behaviour either.
Some products being marketed in Japan sound stupid to North Americans.
Fine; I'm sure that some products being marketed in North America sound
stupid to Japanese folks. The UL concerns marketing in country B under a
name appropriate for country A but meaning "feces" or "defective [in some
way]" in country B.
Obviously if you're allowed to stretch an urban legend to include related
items, eventually you get a true story. E.g. expand the hook story to
"someone once hurt their hand opening a car door" and then supply videotape
evidence.
-- aj "please to supply your hook for enjoying in the itchy back" r
R H Draney
news:avddfo$cmf$1...@atlas.dgp.toronto.edu:
> The "engrish" phenomenon is not an example of this ULish behaviour
> either. Some products being marketed in Japan sound stupid to
> North Americans. Fine; I'm sure that some products being marketed
> in North America sound stupid to Japanese folks. The UL concerns
> marketing in country B under a name appropriate for country A but
> meaning "feces" or "defective [in some way]" in country B.
A mainstay of the Dungeons & Dragons crowd was a Japanese snack called
Pocky...it's readily available in the States now, but still invariably
causes doubletakes when someone not indoctrinated into the cult hears
the name....
R H "wait till they hear about Chocolate Bourbon Pickle" Draney
Crashj
> Someone recently brought up the ignorant marketing of the Chevrolet Vega in
> South America ("How can you sell a car called "Does Not Go")
NOVA. See snopes, as others have said.
Around here we have the M&T bank. Why would anyone put money in an "MT" bank?
Crashj 'room to grow?' Johnson
Brian Huntley
> In article <avcr8...@drn.newsguy.com>,
> R H Draney <dado...@earthlink.net> wrote:
> [...]
> >as the "MR-2" became "merdeux" (="shitty") in French....
>
> ...and some people call it "Mister Two" in English, which while not exactly
> insulting clearly isn't the name the manufacturers thought they were giving
> it.
>
And translating htat into Japanese, we get "Ni-san" which is a shitty
name for a Toyota product.
Charles A Lieberman
fl...@dgp.toronto.edu (Alan J Rosenthal) wrote:
> The "engrish" phenomenon is not an example of this ULish behaviour either.
> Some products being marketed in Japan sound stupid to North Americans.
> Fine; I'm sure that some products being marketed in North America sound
> stupid to Japanese folks. The UL concerns marketing in country B under a
> name appropriate for country A but meaning "feces" or "defective [in some
> way]" in country B.
A very extreme example: a car company marketed, in Hellenic regions of
the world, a car with, as it's name, a word homophonous to the Greek for
smearing shit in another's face. The television ad featured a woman
dressed in blue and white thrusting out her hand, palm forward.
Charles "no, I don't remember where I read this" Lieberman
--
Charles A. Lieberman | "Granted, the animals without heads, bones, or
Brooklyn, NY, USA | limbs need a lot of assistance to breed, but so
cali...@bigfoot.com | what?" Nathan Tenny teaches AFU animal husbandry
Deborah Stevenson,,,
>In article <avddfo$cmf$1...@atlas.dgp.toronto.edu>,
> fl...@dgp.toronto.edu (Alan J Rosenthal) wrote:
>> The "engrish" phenomenon is not an example of this ULish behaviour either.
>> Some products being marketed in Japan sound stupid to North Americans.
>> Fine; I'm sure that some products being marketed in North America sound
>> stupid to Japanese folks. The UL concerns marketing in country B under a
>> name appropriate for country A but meaning "feces" or "defective [in some
>> way]" in country B.
>A very extreme example: a car company marketed, in Hellenic regions of
>the world, a car with, as it's name, a word homophonous to the Greek for
>smearing shit in another's face.
The Chevy Moutza?
>The television ad featured a woman
>dressed in blue and white thrusting out her hand, palm forward.
>Charles "no, I don't remember where I read this" Lieberman
Didn't come up in Google under "moutza" and a few co-search terms, but
then that might not have been mentioned in the article.
Deborah Stevenson
(stev...@alexia.lis.uiuc.edu)
Mary Campbell
>
> A very extreme example: a car company marketed, in Hellenic regions of
> the world, a car with, as it's name, a word homophonous to the Greek for
> smearing shit in another's face.
So it's true. The Greeks *do* have a word for everything.
Charles A Lieberman
cra...@mindspring.com (Crashj) wrote:
> NOVA. See snopes, as others have said.
> Around here we have the M&T bank. Why would anyone put money in an "MT" bank?
>
> Crashj 'room to grow?' Johnson
Why would I buy shoes from a store that advertises with its very name
that it will give me a fungus?
Charles "candid" Lieberman
Lee Ayrton
> In article <avddfo$cmf$1...@atlas.dgp.toronto.edu>,
> fl...@dgp.toronto.edu (Alan J Rosenthal) wrote:
>
> > stupid to Japanese folks. The UL concerns marketing in country B under a
> > name appropriate for country A but meaning "feces" or "defective [in some
> > way]" in country B.
>
> A very extreme example: a car company marketed, in Hellenic regions of
> the world, a car with, as it's name, a word homophonous to the Greek for
> smearing shit in another's face. The television ad featured a woman
> dressed in blue and white thrusting out her hand, palm forward.
>
> Charles "no, I don't remember where I read this" Lieberman
I see clearly your "no cites on hand" flag displayed, but without the
company name and the name of the automobile I'm left wondering: Could this
be yet another variant of the UL, and one not firmly grounded in fact?
Lee "Standards." Ayrton
--
"In spite of what many of us think, our memories suck." David Martin
gives voice to a basic truth in alt.folklore.urban
Charles A Lieberman
Deborah Stevenson,,, <stev...@alexia.lis.uiuc.edu> wrote:
> >A very extreme example: a car company marketed, in Hellenic regions of
> >the world, a car with, as it's name, a word homophonous to the Greek for
> >smearing shit in another's face.
>
> The Chevy Moutza?
Sounds about right, although it could be "Mountza" or something
similarly pronounced. Any Greeks here?
Charles A Lieberman
Lee Ayrton <lay...@ntplx.net> wrote:
> without the
> company name and the name of the automobile I'm left wondering: Could this
> be yet another variant of the UL, and one not firmly grounded in fact?
Well, I think it is, which is why i left out so much corroborating
detail (the sort that gives an air of versimilitude to an otherwise bald
and unconvincing narrative.)
Charles "BoGaS?" Lieberman
Deborah Stevenson,,,
>In article <r1DS9.11671$Vf3.1...@vixen.cso.uiuc.edu>,
> Deborah Stevenson,,, <stev...@alexia.lis.uiuc.edu> wrote:
>> >A very extreme example: a car company marketed, in Hellenic regions of
>> >the world, a car with, as it's name, a word homophonous to the Greek for
>> >smearing shit in another's face.
>>
>> The Chevy Moutza?
>Sounds about right, although it could be "Mountza" or something
>similarly pronounced. Any Greeks here?
Yes. That's why I knew "moutza."
Suppose it could be subject to variant spellings, but that's the one I
know.
Deborah Stevenson
(stev...@alexia.lis.uiuc.edu)
rzed
"Charles A Lieberman" <cali...@bigfoot.com> wrote in message
news:calieber-B87194...@news.fu-berlin.de...
> In article <avddfo$cmf$1...@atlas.dgp.toronto.edu>,
> fl...@dgp.toronto.edu (Alan J Rosenthal) wrote:
>
> > The "engrish" phenomenon is not an example of this ULish behaviour
either.
> > Some products being marketed in Japan sound stupid to North
Americans.
> > Fine; I'm sure that some products being marketed in North America
sound
> > stupid to Japanese folks. The UL concerns marketing in country B
under a
> > name appropriate for country A but meaning "feces" or "defective
[in some
> > way]" in country B.
>
> A very extreme example: a car company marketed, in Hellenic regions
of
> the world, a car with, as it's name, a word homophonous to the Greek
for
> smearing shit in another's face.
There's a *word* for smearing shit in another's face??? What the hell
is it with those Greeks?
Charles A Lieberman
Deborah Stevenson,,, <stev...@alexia.lis.uiuc.edu> wrote:
> >Sounds about right, although it could be "Mountza" or something
> >similarly pronounced. Any Greeks here?
>
> Yes. That's why I knew "moutza."
>
> Suppose it could be subject to variant spellings, but that's the one I
> know.
Ok, I misrecalled. Google has hits for "chevy monza" but none mention
this tale.
Deborah Stevenson,,,
>In article <Y7ES9.11684$Vf3.1...@vixen.cso.uiuc.edu>,
> Deborah Stevenson,,, <stev...@alexia.lis.uiuc.edu> wrote:
>> >Sounds about right, although it could be "Mountza" or something
>> >similarly pronounced. Any Greeks here?
>>
>> Yes. That's why I knew "moutza."
>>
>> Suppose it could be subject to variant spellings, but that's the one I
>> know.
>Ok, I misrecalled. Google has hits for "chevy monza" but none mention
>this tale.
I'm not Greek enough to know the degree of frisson close spelling cousins
would evoke--I suppose this could be the equivalent of a Ford Fock.
Deborah Stevenson
(stev...@alexia.lis.uiuc.edu)
Timothy McDaniel
Deborah Stevenson,,, <stev...@alexia.lis.uiuc.edu> wrote:
>I'm not Greek enough to know the degree of frisson close spelling
>cousins would evoke--I suppose this could be the equivalent of a Ford
>Fock.
ObPunchLine: "Oh, no, yu are wrong", the Norwegian pilot said,
"dem Fokkers were Messerschmidts".
--
Tim McDaniel, tm...@panix.com; tm...@us.ibm.com is my work address
Charles Wm. Dimmick
> Charles A Lieberman <cali...@bigfoot.com> writes:
>
>
>>In article <r1DS9.11671$Vf3.1...@vixen.cso.uiuc.edu>,
>>Deborah Stevenson,,, <stev...@alexia.lis.uiuc.edu> wrote:
>
>
>>>>A very extreme example: a car company marketed, in Hellenic regions of
>>>>the world, a car with, as it's name, a word homophonous to the Greek for
>>>>smearing shit in another's face.
>>>
>>>The Chevy Moutza?
>>
>
>>Sounds about right, although it could be "Mountza" or something
>>similarly pronounced. Any Greeks here?
>
>
> Yes. That's why I knew "moutza."
http://www.ooze.com/finger/html/foriegn.html
About halfway down the page.
CWD
--
"And some rin up hill and down dale, knapping the
chucky stanes to pieces wi' hammers, like sae mony
road-makers run daft -- they say it is to see how
the warld was made!"
Eric Hocking
news:avevp4$fvs$1...@freenet9.carleton.ca...
Except snow.
--
Eric "Village Inuit" Hocking
"A closed mouth gathers no feet"
"Ignorance is a renewable resource" P.J.O'Rourke
http//www.twofromoz.freeserve.co.uk
Crashj
> In article <Y7ES9.11684$Vf3.1...@vixen.cso.uiuc.edu>,
> Deborah Stevenson,,, <stev...@alexia.lis.uiuc.edu> wrote:
>
> > >Sounds about right, although it could be "Mountza" or something
> > >similarly pronounced. Any Greeks here?
> >
> > Yes. That's why I knew "moutza."
> >
> > Suppose it could be subject to variant spellings, but that's the one I
> > know.
>
> Ok, I misrecalled. Google has hits for "chevy monza" but none mention
> this tale.
So it turns out there is a town in Italy - Monza - with a name in
Greek that means . . .
Well, what it means.
Crashj 'Greeks do not like Italians? Surprised?' Johnson
Crashj
> In article <aa83a82f.03010...@posting.google.com>,
> cra...@mindspring.com (Crashj) wrote:
>
> > NOVA. See snopes, as others have said.
> > Around here we have the M&T bank. Why would anyone put money in an "MT" bank?
> >
> > Crashj 'room to grow?' Johnson
>
> Why would I buy shoes from a store that advertises with its very name
> that it will give me a fungus?
>
> Charles "candid" Lieberman
Tom Mcann is a fungus?
Crashj 'whooda thunk it?' Johnson
Ichimusai
> From: "Eric Hocking" <ehoc...@twofromoz.freeserve.com>
> Subject: Re: Chevy Vega in South/Latin America
> Newsgroups: alt.folklore.urban
> Reply-To: "Eric Hocking" <ehoc...@twofromoz.freeserve.com>
> X-Newsreader: Microsoft Outlook Express 6.00.2720.3000
>
> "Mary Campbell" <cc...@FreeNet.Carleton.CA> wrote in message
> news:avevp4$fvs$1...@freenet9.carleton.ca...
>> Charles A Lieberman (cali...@bigfoot.com) writes:
>> >
>> > A very extreme example: a car company marketed, in Hellenic regions of
>> > the world, a car with, as it's name, a word homophonous to the Greek for
>> > smearing shit in another's face.
>>
>> So it's true. The Greeks *do* have a word for everything.
>
> Except snow.
They can have one of ours. Skitsnö.
--
Ichimusai - Longing for the summer when you don't have to chisel the
ice bark of the car.
spo...@best.com
> Why would anyone put money in an "MT" bank?
To cure the problem.
Barbara "hate running on MT" Mikkelson
--
Barbara Mikkelson | [on masturbation] At least it's sex with
spo...@best.com | someone you love. - David Anderson
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Urban legends and more --> http://www.snopes.com
Trayce
<BurroughsG...@aol.com> wrote:
>R H Draney wrote:
>
>> Some inappropriate auto names get through and nobody says a word...I'm
>thinking
>> of the Reliant...most manufacturers have seen the light and now name
>their
>> vehicles with random strings of letters and digits, although even this
>isn't
>> foolproof as the "MR-2" became "merdeux" (="shitty") in French....
>
>Pontiac had a "600SE", which in some type fonts it looked like "Goose".
>
>As far as the Nova is concerned, I'm sure it looked like "No go" to some
>people. How many sales that cost them is impossible to quantify. There's
>a Korean company which is managing to sell cars under the acronym for
>"killed in action".
They sell those in .au (the KIA) and when they first came on the
market I recall reading a few letters to the editor from Angry of
Mayfair demanding a head on a plate for taking the piss out of war
vets, etc etc...
Trayce
--
faith in chaos
trace @ connect.net.au
http://www.memorygongs.com
Luke Welling
lines of an X5 or Cayenne called the Kubang.
It is supposed to be named after a Javanese wind, so is probably supposed to
be pronounced koo-bang, but I hope I am not the only person in the world who
reads it kabang and thinks of explosions.
Luke.
Refer:
http://www.drive.com.au/news/article.asp?article=http://drive.fairfax.com.au
/content-new/news/general/2003/01/08/FFX0X4Z3OAD.html
Ben Zimmer
>
> On a tangentially related note, Maserati have a concept GT-SUV along the
> lines of an X5 or Cayenne called the Kubang.
>
> It is supposed to be named after a Javanese wind, so is probably supposed to
> be pronounced koo-bang, but I hope I am not the only person in the world who
> reads it kabang and thinks of explosions.
>
> http://www.drive.com.au/news/article.asp?article=http://drive.fairfax.com.au
> /content-new/news/general/2003/01/08/FFX0X4Z3OAD.html
I'm afraid even in Indonesia this name wouldn't exactly fly. The only
meaning for "kubang" I find in Indonesian dictionaries (which would
include common Javanese words) is "mudhole, mudpuddle, quagmire".
Searching for similar terms, I find that there is a wind locally known
as "angin kumbang" (literally "bumblebee wind"). As one site explains,
this is the name of a very dry S to SW wind that blows into the port of
Cirebon on the north coast of Java:
http://www.indonesiamarinebroker.com/port/cirebon.htm
Now "kumbang" is properly pronounced "KOOM-bahng", but I can see why
Maserati might have wanted to modify the term to avoid a more, um,
salacious reading in English. But I'm sure Indonesians would find it
pretty funny that Maserati ended up changing the name from a word
meaning "bumblebee" to one meaning "mudhole".
Ben "talk about a quagmire" Zimmer
Nathan Tenny
Burroughs Guy <BurroughsG...@aol.com> wrote:
>As far as the Nova is concerned, I'm sure it looked like "No go" to some
>people.
Cite? Note that "nova", while not Formal Spanish, is pretty well understood
to mean "new" (Nova Sin gasoline, the bossa nova). To insist that people
read it as "no va", I submit, is an extraordinary claim requiring
extraordinary evidence.
>How many sales that cost them is impossible to quantify.
Or how many sales it gained for them (on sense-of-humor grounds). To my
recollection, TAFKAC includes a post asserting (without specific numbers)
that the Nova sold quite well in Mexico. (As well it should have; those
things are an absolute blast to drive around in, and the one I had looked
likely to keep running forever, albeit consuming more oil than gasoline
in its dotage.)
NT
--
Nathan Tenny | Space is where your ass is.
Qualcomm, Inc., San Diego, CA | -William S. Burroughs
<nten...@qualcomm.com> |
felix_the_swiss
> So it turns out there is a town in Italy - Monza - with a name in
> Greek that means . . .
> Well, what it means.
>
> Crashj 'Greeks do not like Italians? Surprised?' Johnson
i guess you all know about problems of globalization (e.g. see /ford
pinto/). but there's a little story about the airport of
zurich/switzerland, now known as /unique/-airport.
unique-airport has always been called /kloten/-airport, because kloten
is the name of the village where the airport really is. guess what
/kloten/ means in the netherlands?
felix "great kloten of fire" the swiss
-------------------
u have 2 burn that door.
JoAnne Schmitz
wrote:
>> Yes. That's why I knew "moutza."
>
>http://www.ooze.com/finger/html/foriegn.html
>About halfway down the page.
That page includes the following:
'In 1941 Winston Churchill made what we now know as the 'V-for-Victory sign'
famous. He made no distinction between the forward and palm-back V sign until
the latter part of the war when someone probably pointed out he was telling the
masses to, "piss off".'
It seems to me that the palm-out or palm-back distinction wasn't always made,
though. Any hints?
This reminds me of a 1943 movie hubby and I watched a couple of weeks ago,
"Hangmen Also Die." It was a fictionalized account of the (real) killing of
Reinhard Heydrich, the Nazi "protector" of Czechoslovakia, and the subsequent
victimization of the entire village of Lidice in retaliation.
In one otherwise stirring scene, men about to be executed marched out singing
their victory-over-death song while extending their hands to each other in the
V-for-Victory sign. Palm-back.
JoAnne "I guess it could have been intentional, but it gave us the giggles"
Schmitz
Louise Bremner
> 'In 1941 Winston Churchill made what we now know as the 'V-for-Victory
> sign' famous. He made no distinction between the forward and palm-back V
> sign until the latter part of the war when someone probably pointed out he
> was telling the masses to, "piss off".'
>
> It seems to me that the palm-out or palm-back distinction wasn't always
> made, though. Any hints?
Maggie Thatcher apparently didn't know of that distinction too....
I think the hint lies in the use of the word "masses" in your quote. Up
until recently, people from genteel backgrounds simply didn't know that
there was another, similar gesture.
________________________________________________________________________
Louise "" Bremner (log at gol dot com)
If you want a reply by e-mail, don't write to my Yahoo address!
HWM
> I think the hint lies in the use of the word "masses" in your quote. Up
> until recently, people from genteel backgrounds simply didn't know that
> there was another, similar gesture.
Well, some lasnerian years ago my mother flipped the bird and asked,
does this mean: "go smell a cunt" (equivalent usage term in Finnish as
"fuck off" is in English). Well, my mother being venerable I was
somewhat taken aback at her becoming such a lewd granny, and asked "yes,
but why are you interested in this???" She continues: "Well, see, we
were just now at the hypermarket parking lot and some young man cut us
off and your father showed this (my mom wiggling the finger and making a
face) and I thought that young man would pop a vein from his head he
came so angry... and now I am worried about your dad as hes been
giggling since we came back." Then she smiled and said " I have to
remember this."
Hrm. I haven't seen it used too much here, except among the kids.
Occasionally, but I'd pop a vein too if some old lady/geezer flipped me
the finger.
--
Cheers, HWM
henry.w @ sanet.fi
Norm Soley
news:YmFydGljdXM=.73f71fb97f40532bd0bca7a0defef6fb@1041898916.cotse.net...
> R H Draney wrote:
>
> > Some inappropriate auto names get through and nobody says a word...I'm
> thinking
> > of the Reliant...most manufacturers have seen the light and now name
> their
> > vehicles with random strings of letters and digits, although even this
> isn't
> > foolproof as the "MR-2" became "merdeux" (="shitty") in French....
>
> Pontiac had a "600SE", which in some type fonts it looked like "Goose".
I think you mean the Pontiac 6000SE so to see Goose one had to be a trifle myopic,
I had at one time as a company car a 6000LE which we employees all called "Goolie"
so it was a common visual trick to turn the 6 into a G and compress the three 000's into
two.
Norm Soley
> Ichimusai <ic...@ichimusai.org> writes:
> >I know the model Fitta was renamed for the scandinavian market though.
> >(Fitta means "cunt" in Sweden, Norway, Denmark and possibly other
> >Scandinavian areas).
>
> For those who just came in, of course companies choose different product names
> in different markets, for a variety of reasons.
>
> The UL is that a company *failed* to do this. That they named a product
> something which would be instantly perceived by the natives as horrendously
> insulting to the product, somehow managing to instigate distribution in a
> given country without actually having anyone in the country helping out.
>
> E.g.
> > Rolls Royce almost fell into the same trap until someone
> > pointed out the meaning of their proposed Silver Mist model in
> > German.
>
> This is a typical citing, having the weasel word "almost". I don't know
> what it means to "almost" name a product something.
Usually it means they spend some amount of time and money developing an
english name, registering trademarks, printing marketing collateral on the assumption
that a direct translation of the name could be used in all markets. They may have even
had the name translated by someone not up on the vernacular and expended some
resources on the assumption that they had a usable translation. There is the
example for instance of a Canadian bank that initially wanted to call their ATM's
"The Button Bank" and had done all of the above, registered trademarks, produced
signage and advertising material and the like only to discover that the Parisian French
translator they used was unfamiliar with the secondary meaning of bouton in Quebecois,
so instead we have "The Green Machine". I have no authorative cite for this one as I haven't
seen the person who related to me in some time but it was not related as a FOAF story but
reflecting his personal experience.
Digital Equipment similarly spend a great deal of money coming up with a new name
for a processor, registered trademarks, paid a firm to develop a graphic logo incorporating
the acronym of the name etc. only to discover after announcing the new name to employees,
a few days before it was to be announced to the public that the acronym was a phonetic
spelling of an arabic curse word. I was an employee at the time (as was, if I have the timing right,
snopes).
Paul Tomblin
>I think you mean the Pontiac 6000SE so to see Goose one had to be a
>trifle myopic,
I keep seeing Toyota Corolla VEs and wondering why anybody would put a V6
in a Corolla. (They use a fairly round font)
--
Paul Tomblin <ptom...@xcski.com>, not speaking for anybody
Q: How did you get into artificial intelligence?
A: Seemed logical -- I didn't have any real intelligence.
Ad absurdum per aspera
> the name from a word meaning "bumblebee" to one meaning "mudhole".
Conceivably Maserati knew about the "mudhole" issue and deemed that to
be appropriate to the nature of the vehicle -- though I'd expect to
see a Maserati sport-ute on some chic-to-sheik shopping boulevard, or
doing precisely the speed limit down the freeway while a motorcycle
cop trails it like a pilot fish on a shark, rather than churning
through a mudhole in either work or play. Probably the inability to
get 4x8-foot plywood into the cargo area isn't a big deal in the
Kubang's target market either.
In any case I'd venture that product localization is not nearly as
important for Maserati, purveyor of exotic performance vehicles to the
well-heeled enthusiast, as for mass-market marques. The folks to
which it is being pitched will catch on, since the company has used a
"wind" theme in naming many of its cars -- e.g., the hot high-pressure
wind that blows through intake manifolds, the "Biturbo."
Seriously, no matter what the name (short of outright offensiveness),
they'll probably sell about the same small number, resembling the
number that they can possibly make. A company like Chevy,
attempting to sell hundreds of thousands of cars at a fifth to a tenth
the price of a Maserati, would have much more concern about this sort
of thing.
Reminds me of the time I asked an engine rebuilder, who like most of
his employees hailed from Jalisco and nearby states of Mexico, about
the "no va" urban legend. The consensus was that it was kinda funny
but they'd never heard it either as supposed truth or as a joke, and
didn't know of any antipathy in their corner of the (admittedly large
and diverse) Spanish-speaking world toward the various cars that Chevy
has called "Nova" over three decades.
Cheers,
--Joe
Ben Zimmer
Ad absurdum per aspera wrote:
>
> > I'm sure Indonesians would find it pretty funny that Maserati ended up changing
> > the name from a word meaning "bumblebee" to one meaning "mudhole".
>
> Conceivably Maserati knew about the "mudhole" issue and deemed that to
> be appropriate to the nature of the vehicle -- though I'd expect to
> see a Maserati sport-ute on some chic-to-sheik shopping boulevard, or
> doing precisely the speed limit down the freeway while a motorcycle
> cop trails it like a pilot fish on a shark, rather than churning
> through a mudhole in either work or play. Probably the inability to
> get 4x8-foot plywood into the cargo area isn't a big deal in the
> Kubang's target market either.
>
> In any case I'd venture that product localization is not nearly as
> important for Maserati, purveyor of exotic performance vehicles to the
> well-heeled enthusiast, as for mass-market marques. The folks to
> which it is being pitched will catch on, since the company has used a
> "wind" theme in naming many of its cars -- e.g., the hot high-pressure
> wind that blows through intake manifolds, the "Biturbo."
>
> Seriously, no matter what the name (short of outright offensiveness),
> they'll probably sell about the same small number, resembling the
> number that they can possibly make. A company like Chevy,
> attempting to sell hundreds of thousands of cars at a fifth to a tenth
> the price of a Maserati, would have much more concern about this sort
> of thing.
No, I didn't think Maserati would be too concerned about product
localization in Indonesia (though there are no doubt ultrarich customers
for such a car there-- after all, Tommy Soeharto, the ex-president's son
now languishing in jail for ordering a hit on a judge, used to have a
controlling interest in Lamborghini). I just thought the good people at
Maserati might have wanted to name the car after an actual wind rather
than the muck that water buffaloes wallow around in.
But I think I might have located the source of the error-- there are a
few lists of wind names on the Web (presumably drawn from meteorology
texts) that include the misspelled "kubang", defined as "in Java, a
chinook" (a chinook is a warm downslope wind). So it looks like
Maserati was simply borrowing from an erroneous list, rather than (as I
had suspected) bowdlerizing the more suggestive-sounding "kumbang".
For more on the Kubang and other oddly named cars of late, see:
http://money.cnn.com/2003/01/08/news/funny/car_names/
Ben "ah for the days of the Goggomobile" Zimmer
[1] http://www.soilsci.ndsu.nodak.edu/Enz/ss217/winds.html
http://windlegends.org/windnames.htm
http://www.france-ok.com/recipes/windnames.htm
HWM
> The UL is that a company *failed* to do this. That they named a product
> something which would be instantly perceived by the natives as horrendously
> insulting to the product, somehow managing to instigate distribution in a
> given country without actually having anyone in the country helping out.
Reportedly the FinnCrisp rye bread was initially brought to the market
as "FinnRape" because "rapea" is the Finnish word for "crunchy". They
said they had a test batch in the stores/ were marketing it in the
nordic countries before it dawned at some fair thet one needs to change
the product name.
Burroughs Guy
> "Burroughs Guy" <BurroughsG...@aol.com> wrote in message
> > Pontiac had a "600SE", which in some type fonts it looked like
"Goose".
>
> I think you mean the Pontiac 6000SE so to see Goose one had to be a
trifle myopic,
I was sure I had seen a classified ad for a G00SE, so I did a bit of
searching. I discover 'twas Dodge made the G00SE, which I have conflated
with a similar Pontiac designation.
http://www.3wave.com/arp/DOD1.HTM#72
--
Burroughs Guy
I knew the MCP when it was just a chess program.
Louise Bremner
> ...there are a few lists of wind names on the Web (presumably drawn from
> meteorology texts) that include the misspelled "kubang", defined as "in
> Java, a chinook" (a chinook is a warm downslope wind). So it looks like
> Maserati was simply borrowing from an erroneous list ....
Caught by a copyright trap?
Alan Follett
<epic snip>
> For more on the Kubang and other oddly
> named cars of late, see:
> http://money.cnn.com/2003/01/08/news/funny/car_names/
> Ben "ah for the days of the Goggomobile"
> Zimmer
But perhaps "all the good names are taken" isn't really an
insurmountable problem; a lot of those names were taken so long ago that
they're likely once again available. Just strip-mine the nomenclature
of long-gone companies. Who would have standing to raise a legal tsuris
if some contemporary automaker trod on the priority of the [Graham]
Hollywood, or the [Franklin] Pirate, or the [Stutz] Blackhawk, for
instance?
Alan "drives a Toyota Tyromancer" Follett
Rick Tyler
Tomblin) wrote:
>In a previous article, "Norm Soley" <nso...@seemysig.spamsucks> said:
>>I think you mean the Pontiac 6000SE so to see Goose one had to be a
>>trifle myopic,
>
>I keep seeing Toyota Corolla VEs and wondering why anybody would put a V6
>in a Corolla. (They use a fairly round font)
Just happened to me today. Wow, a Toyota competitor to the Nissan
Altima, I thought, then noticed the unusual "VE" moniker.
- Rick "What happened to Custom, XL, and XLT?" Tyler
--
"Ignorant voracity -- a wingless vulture -- can soar only into the
depths of ignominy." Patrick O'Brian
Bill Kinkaid
wrote:
>Nathan Tenny wrote:
>
>> The Pajero is therefore called the Montero in Spanish-speaking markets,
>> including the USA. What I can't figure out is where the name came from
>> in the first place; does it mean something else in some other language?
>
>Not necessarily, the Japanese come up with loads of engrish-sounding
>names such as "Pokari Sweat" all the time.
Think of
Integra
Sentra
Celica
Miata
Elantra
and dozens of other car names issuing from Japanese, Korean, European
and USAnian manufacturers. Mostly Latinish-sounding but could be
Asian-sounding. How many of them mean anything at all? And even the
ones which are real words don't mean much; why would you name a car
after a verse of poetry ("stanza"; I've owned two), f'rinstance?
Bill in Vancouver
s...@pffcu.com
> bgzi...@midway.uchicago.edu (Ben?Zimmer) wrote:
>
> <epic snip>
>
>> For more on the Kubang and other oddly
>> named cars of late, see:
>
>> http://money.cnn.com/2003/01/08/news/funny/car_names/
>
>> Ben "ah for the days of the Goggomobile"
>> Zimmer
>
> But perhaps "all the good names are taken" isn't really an
> insurmountable problem; a lot of those names were taken so long ago that
> they're likely once again available. Just strip-mine the nomenclature
> of long-gone companies. Who would have standing to raise a legal tsuris
> if some contemporary automaker trod on the priority of the [Graham]
> Hollywood, or the [Franklin] Pirate, or the [Stutz] Blackhawk, for
> instance?
>
____ & ______ car magazines (not being coy, I just don't remember which
one) in which a small company in the Principality of Monaco decided to
build a supercar called, appropriately enough, the Monaco. Hold the
boat, quoth General Motors, we don't recall giving you permission to us
our trademarked name. But the legal Powers that Be in Monaco were
unimpressed, remarking that they did not recall ever allowing Chevrolet
to borrow the name in the first place.
My Googling skills are perhaps not all they should be but I'm unable to
come up with a cite on this.
--
sc
Bill Kinkaid
Follett) wrote:
>
>But perhaps "all the good names are taken" isn't really an
>insurmountable problem; a lot of those names were taken so long ago that
>they're likely once again available. Just strip-mine the nomenclature
>of long-gone companies. Who would have standing to raise a legal tsuris
>if some contemporary automaker trod on the priority of the [Graham]
>Hollywood, or the [Franklin] Pirate, or the [Stutz] Blackhawk, for
>instance?
>
bubble car, despited the fact that Ford had used in the 50s for a
version of the Edsel. There are other recent examples but I can't
think of them at this time in the morning.
GM, of course, keeps dragging dead names back out, often for vehicles
bearing no resemblance whatsoever to the former user of the name;
Malibu, Impala, and Monte Carlo are current shades of their namesakes.
Bill in Vancouver
s...@pffcu.com
>
> Which reminds me of the article I read a few years ago in one of the
> ____ & ______ car magazines (not being coy, I just don't remember which
> one) in which a small company in the Principality of Monaco decided to
> build a supercar called, appropriately enough, the Monaco. Hold the
> boat, quoth General Motors, we don't recall giving you permission to us
> our trademarked name. But the legal Powers that Be in Monaco were
> unimpressed, remarking that they did not recall ever allowing Chevrolet
> to borrow the name in the first place.
>
> My Googling skills are perhaps not all they should be but I'm unable to
> come up with a cite on this.
>
*Monte Carlo* supercar can be found at
http://www.sera-cd.com/fr/projets/fiches/monte_carlo.htm
(en francais)
Sorry to say I still cannot find anything relating to the dispute.
--
sc
TMOliver
>>
> More recently (well in the 70s), AM dragged out the name
> Pacer for its bubble car, despited the fact that Ford had
> used in the 50s for a version of the Edsel.
At the peak of my automotive frenzy when the Edsel was birthed,
I simply don't recall a "Pacer" version, although up in
Canuckery there were often different models, often in name only.
"Ranger", a named re-used by Ford for its small pickup does
strike me as familiar in an Edsel sense...
> There are other
> recent examples but I can't think of them at this time in
> the morning. GM, of course, keeps dragging dead names back
> out, often for vehicles bearing no resemblance whatsoever to
> the former user of the name; Malibu, Impala, and Monte Carlo
> are current shades of their namesakes.
We await the return of the LaSalle, now that Barney Olds will
only be a faint memory. After all, the "Grand Pricks" (as it
was called hereabouts among the nonFrancophones which is most of
us) finally returned, a mere ghost of its former self.
TM "Does a Taho'Ho' ply her trade in a SUV?" Oliver
Burroughs Guy
> More recently (well in the 70s), AM dragged out the name Pacer for its
> bubble car, despited the fact that Ford had used in the 50s for a
> version of the Edsel. There are other recent examples but I can't
> think of them at this time in the morning.
A few years later, Chevy came out with the Citation, also an Edsel model.
I think there are lots of animal names waiting to be used: Rhinoceros,
Giraffe, Grizzly, Buffalo, Gazelle, Mongoose, Capybara, Condor, Peacock,
Coyote, Salamander, Python. I would guess one or two of those have
already been used.
It wasn't sold under this name, but GM developed an electric car under the
name Impact. It must have been a crash development program. They had a
real bang-up year. It was sure to be a smashing success.
R H Draney
>> Which reminds me of the article I read a few years ago in one of
>> the ____ & ______ car magazines (not being coy, I just don't
>> remember which one) in which a small company in the Principality
>> of Monaco decided to build a supercar called, appropriately
>> enough, the Monaco. Hold the boat, quoth General Motors, we don't
>> recall giving you permission to us our trademarked name. But the
>> legal Powers that Be in Monaco were unimpressed, remarking that
>> they did not recall ever allowing Chevrolet to borrow the name in
>> the first place.
Sure you weren't confusing it with this?
http://www.mamohanraj.com/Amusing/warner.html
....r
R H Draney
news:c2p52vskh4rj7d6v0...@4ax.com:
> Think of
>
> Integra
> Sentra
> Celica
> Miata
> Elantra
>
> and dozens of other car names issuing from Japanese, Korean,
> European and USAnian manufacturers. Mostly Latinish-sounding but
> could be Asian-sounding. How many of them mean anything at all?
> And even the ones which are real words don't mean much; why would
> you name a car after a verse of poetry ("stanza"; I've owned two),
> f'rinstance?
Asian manufacturers don't have a corner on the "goofy-car-name"
market...Ford "Probe", anybody?...r
s...@pffcu.com
and Person/ or /Throughway and Path/ or even that fine publication
/Horseless Carriage/, all of which from time to time I have been known
to read. And I do not read /Variety/ or any of its ilk so I do not
think I would have run into it there.
But I am cheerfully willing to admit that the editorial staff of any of
the first three publications might have made up the story of the Monte
Carlo based on the Casablanca letter you cite. Until such time as
witnesses to the production of the magazine appear however I fear that
your submission must remain speculative.
I remain yr dedicated srvnt.,
--
sc
Rick Tyler
wrote:
>At the peak of my automotive frenzy when the Edsel was birthed,
>I simply don't recall a "Pacer" version, although up in
>Canuckery there were often different models, often in name only.
<snip>
Sure there was. Visiting our friends at www.edsel.com reveals many
Edsel models including the Citation, Ranger, Pacer, Corsair, Bermuda,
Villager, and Roundup. I'm sure TM remembers, but others may not,
that Edsel was not just a new car, but a new family of cars for Ford
Motor, just as Ford, Lincoln, and Mercury were. Are. Just like (in
the USA at least) Honda has Honda and Acura, GM has Chevrolet,
Oldsmobile (temporarily), Buick, GMC, Cadillac, Pontiac, and Saturn,
and Toyota has Toyota and Lexus.
- Rick "But Studebaker was just Studebaker" Tyler
Norm Soley
> Bill Kinkaid wrote:
>
> > More recently (well in the 70s), AM dragged out the name Pacer for its
> > bubble car, despited the fact that Ford had used in the 50s for a
> > version of the Edsel. There are other recent examples but I can't
> > think of them at this time in the morning.
>
> A few years later, Chevy came out with the Citation, also an Edsel model.
>
> I think there are lots of animal names waiting to be used: Rhinoceros,
> Giraffe, Grizzly, Buffalo, Gazelle, Mongoose, Capybara, Condor, Peacock,
> Coyote, Salamander, Python. I would guess one or two of those have
> already been used.
In these parts some of those names are military vehicles, the spectacularily unsuccessful
Grizzly, where, according to rumour, if you fire the gun with the doors open they would
fall off and the reputadly very successful Coyote, Buffalo's (and Otters and Caribou) are
airplanes.
Don't forget my suggestion of some time ago, Nutria
--
Norm Soley, just some guy
Would you please call my lawyers and tell 'em that my ISP is attglobal.net
Burroughs Guy
> http://www.mamohanraj.com/Amusing/warner.html
obDrift, I note Groucho vectors a very popular misconcsption:
>Now about the Burbank studio. I believe this is what you brothers
>call your place. Old man Burbank is gone. Perhaps you
>remember him. He was a great man in a garden. His wife often
>said Luther had ten green thumbs. What a witty woman she must
>have been! Burbank was the wizard who crossed all those fruits
>and vegetables until he had the poor plants in such a confused
>and jittery condition that they could never decide whether to enter
>the dining room on the meat platter or the dessert dish.
The Burbank Studio was named for the City of Burbank, where it is located.
The City of Burbank was named after David Burbank, a Los Angeles dentist
who purchased much land thereabouts. Luther Burbank had nothing to do
with the City of Burbank. Luther did his famed work in northern
California. (Santa Rosa if my wetware archives are trustworthy.)
--
Burroughs "and sometimes they are" Guy
Paul Tomblin
>spectacularily unsuccessful Grizzly, where, according to rumour, if you
>fire the gun with the doors open they would fall off and the reputadly
I was told that by the .50 cal machine gunner on a Grizzly, and if you
can't trust the guy who makes the doors fall off, who can you trust.
>very successful Coyote, Buffalo's (and Otters and Caribou) are airplanes.
My dad (who worked for deHavilland Canada for 30 years), they stopped
using the animal names because nobody could think of any more Canadian
animals that didn't have unpleasant associations. For instance, the
obvious name for a follow on to the Buffalo and Caribou, "Reindeer", was
ruined by Neville Shute and Jimmy Stewart. So we're stuck with the
singularly uninspiring "Twin Otter", "Dash-7", "Dash-8".
--
Paul Tomblin <ptom...@xcski.com>, not speaking for anybody
Every program has two purposes -- one for which it was written and
another for which it wasn't.
Anthony McCafferty
writes:
>My dad (who worked for deHavilland Canada for 30 years), they stopped
>using the animal names because nobody could think of any more Canadian
>animals that didn't have unpleasant associations. For instance, the
>obvious name for a follow on to the Buffalo and Caribou, "Reindeer", was
>ruined by Neville Shute and Jimmy Stewart. So we're stuck with the
>singularly uninspiring "Twin Otter", "Dash-7", "Dash-8".
You do not know what Frosty Contempt is until you ask the young lady
behind the counter if your copy of "The Immortal Beaver" has come in yet.
Anthony "perhaps I should have said 'arrived'" McCafferty
Bob Ward
McCafferty) wrote:
>-:In article <avvf6g$rk4$1...@allhats.xcski.com>, ptom...@xcski.com (Paul Tomblin)
>-:writes:
>-:
>-:>My dad (who worked for deHavilland Canada for 30 years), they stopped
>-:>using the animal names because nobody could think of any more Canadian
>-:>animals that didn't have unpleasant associations. For instance, the
>-:>obvious name for a follow on to the Buffalo and Caribou, "Reindeer", was
>-:>ruined by Neville Shute and Jimmy Stewart. So we're stuck with the
>-:>singularly uninspiring "Twin Otter", "Dash-7", "Dash-8".
>-:
>-: You do not know what Frosty Contempt is until you ask the young lady
>-:behind the counter if your copy of "The Immortal Beaver" has come in yet.
Never ask the girl in the orange apron at Home Depot if she knows
where you can find some half-inch nipples.
--
The time for action is past! NOW is the time for the senseless bickering
R H Draney
et:
> The Burbank Studio was named for the City of Burbank, where it is
> located.
> The City of Burbank was named after David Burbank, a Los Angeles
> dentist
> who purchased much land thereabouts. Luther Burbank had nothing
> to do with the City of Burbank. Luther did his famed work in
> northern California. (Santa Rosa if my wetware archives are
> trustworthy.)
Another cherished childhood myth shattered...I haven't been this
entoisht since I found out Griffith Park wasn't named for D W....r
Charles A Lieberman
<YmFydGljdXM=.2ce91188e7c37d56...@1042486508.cotse.net>,
"Burroughs Guy" <BurroughsG...@aol.com> wrote:
> It wasn't sold under this name, but GM developed an electric car under the
> name Impact. It must have been a crash development program. They had a
> real bang-up year. It was sure to be a smashing success.
I was puzzled when, a few years ago, I saw an advertisement for a car on
which the manufacturer had chosen to bestow the name "Avalon." Now, I
know what Avalon means (or at least I think I do), and it struck me that
the thoughts counjured up thus would hardly encourage one to buy a car,
any more than one might wish to drive a Pontiac Valhalla.
--
Charles A. Lieberman | "Granted, the animals without heads, bones, or
Brooklyn, NY, USA | limbs need a lot of assistance to breed, but so
cali...@bigfoot.com | what?" Nathan Tenny teaches AFU animal husbandry
HWM
> Pontiac Valhalla.
CMC Gehenna
Alan Follett
<snip>
> Which reminds me of the article I read a few years ago in one of the
> ____ & ______ car magazines (not being coy, I just don't remember which
> one) in which a small company in the Principality of Monaco decided to
> build a supercar called, appropriately enough, the Monaco. Hold the
> boat, quoth General Motors, we don't recall giving you permission to us
> our trademarked name. But the legal Powers that Be in Monaco were
> unimpressed, remarking that they did not recall ever allowing Chevrolet
> to borrow the name in the first place.
>
> My Googling skills are perhaps not all they should be but I'm unable to
> come up with a cite on this.
If it was GM that was involved, perhaps the proposed name was Monte
Carlo. Monaco was, in two different eras, a Dodge model.
Alan "a grim oldie" Follett
Crashj
> build a supercar called, appropriately enough, the Monaco. Hold the
> boat, quoth General Motors, we don't recall giving you permission to us
> our trademarked name. But the legal Powers that Be in Monaco were
> unimpressed, remarking that they did not recall ever allowing Chevrolet
> to borrow the name in the first place.
Unlikely to succeed, that, as the "Monaco" moniker was attached to an
unlamented late Dodge model.
Crashj 'Monte Carlo is a different matter' Johnson
Simon Slavin
"Burroughs Guy" <BurroughsG...@aol.com> wrote:
>A few years later, Chevy came out with the Citation, also an Edsel model.
>
>I think there are lots of animal names waiting to be used: Rhinoceros,
>Giraffe, Grizzly, Buffalo, Gazelle, Mongoose, Capybara, Condor, Peacock,
>Coyote, Salamander, Python. I would guess one or two of those have
>already been used.
If you enclude non-US English-speaking territories then I have no
trouble thinking of car models called Condor and Python. Also I
remember a car called something like a Stutz Bearcat. Is that an
animal ?
>--
>Burroughs Guy
>I knew the MCP when it was just a chess program.
You know, _Tron_ would have been a lot funnier if the MCP had
originally been emacs. But fewer people would have understood
the joke.
R H Draney
>
>Charles A Lieberman wrote:
>
>> Pontiac Valhalla.
>
>CMC Gehenna
This could prove entertaining....
R H "Mazda Ahura" Draney
Burroughs Guy
> > The City of Burbank was named after David Burbank, a Los Angeles
> > dentist
> > who purchased much land thereabouts. Luther Burbank had nothing
> > to do with the City of Burbank.
> Another cherished childhood myth shattered...I haven't been this
> entoisht since I found out Griffith Park wasn't named for D W....r
I guess that would be a very similar Southern California misconception.
But if you tell someone Griffith Park was named for Griffith J Griffith
they say "oh really?", while people will adamantly maintain that Burbank
California is named for Luther Burbank. My aunt, who had been a teacher
at Burbank High School, insisted the city was named after Luther. Then
she retreated and said, "Well, Burbank High School is named after Luther
Burbank." In fact there are schools named after Luther Burbank, but the
one where she taught, where Burbank Blvd dead ends into Third Street, is
named after the city which is named after David.
And I just vorified that Luther Burbank lived in Santa Rosa:
http://www.parks.sonoma.net/burbank.html
--
Burroughs Guy
Gerald Belton
<cali...@bigfoot.com> wrote:
>I was puzzled when, a few years ago, I saw an advertisement for a car on
>which the manufacturer had chosen to bestow the name "Avalon." Now, I
>know what Avalon means (or at least I think I do), and it struck me that
>the thoughts counjured up thus would hardly encourage one to buy a car,
>any more than one might wish to drive a Pontiac Valhalla.
Hey, I'd buy a car yclept "Valhalla."
Gerald
Nathan Tenny
Simon Slavin <sla...@hearsay.demon.co.uk@localhost> wrote:
>Also I
>remember a car called something like a Stutz Bearcat. Is that an
>animal ?
Colloquial name for the wolverine, I believe. The only way I ever hear it
used, though, is as a mild euphemism---"that's a bearcat to fix" seems to
be a bowdlerization of "that's a bitch to fix". I assume that's a more
recent usage than the era of the Stutz Bearcat.
NT
--
Nathan Tenny | Space is where your ass is.
Qualcomm, Inc., San Diego, CA | -William S. Burroughs
<nten...@qualcomm.com> |
Ian Munro
> If you enclude non-US English-speaking territories then I have no
> trouble thinking of car models called Condor and Python. Also I
> remember a car called something like a Stutz Bearcat.
You know those were different times.
Ian "heavenly wine and roses" Munro
--
"I resent the implication that my job is not pretty."
--Christine Malcom-Dept.
TeaLady
news:BA4A5FDC...@10.0.1.2:
> If you enclude non-US English-speaking territories then I have no
> trouble thinking of car models called Condor and Python. Also I
> remember a car called something like a Stutz Bearcat. Is that an
> animal ?
>
In Cleveland, Ohio, area a Stutz Bearcat is a musician. A bass
player, to be exact.
--
TeaLady (mari)
"We need love and understanding. We need to remedy this cultural
gulf. Half-hour cultural group therapy and urban spelling lessons
can now be scheduled M-Th 7:30-9 EST." - David Wnsemius on the new
feel-good afu standards.
Alan Follett
<snip>
> I'm sure TM remembers, but others may not,
> that Edsel was not just a new car, but a new
> family of cars for Ford Motor, just as Ford,
> Lincoln, and Mercury were. Are. Just like (in
> the USA at least) Honda has Honda and
> Acura, GM has Chevrolet, Oldsmobile
> (temporarily), Buick, GMC, Cadillac, Pontiac,
> and Saturn, and Toyota has Toyota and
> Lexus.
> Rick "But Studebaker was just Studebaker"
> Tyler
[Ooh, a shiny, barby thing; wonder what it tastes like. Let's see....]
Studebaker certainly had a range of model names (President, Champion,
Commander, Lark, Avanti, and a whole nest of Hawk variants in its later
years, and in earlier days even a Dictator), but if you're talking about
separate marques from the same company (as in the Toyota-Lexus
relationship, for example), Studebaker Corp. also fielded the Erskine
(1924-1930) and the Rockne (1932), neither badged as a Stude.
Alan "didn't have a driver's license until I was forty" Follett
Rick Tyler
(Nathan Tenny) wrote:
>In article <BA4A5FDC...@10.0.1.2>,
>Simon Slavin <sla...@hearsay.demon.co.uk@localhost> wrote:
>>Also I remember a car called something like a Stutz Bearcat.
You must be really, really old! [Internet rimshot]
>
>Colloquial name for the wolverine, I believe. The only way I ever hear it
>used, though, is as a mild euphemism---"that's a bearcat to fix"
<snip>
You have to admit that it is a less awkward expression than "that's an
F8F to fix."
- Rick "All threads, are &c." Tyler
Bob Ward
<ger...@beltonphoto.com> wrote:
>-:On Tue, 14 Jan 2003 10:12:42 -0500, Charles A Lieberman
>-:<cali...@bigfoot.com> wrote:
>-:
>-:>I was puzzled when, a few years ago, I saw an advertisement for a car on
>-:>which the manufacturer had chosen to bestow the name "Avalon." Now, I
>-:>know what Avalon means (or at least I think I do), and it struck me that
>-:>the thoughts counjured up thus would hardly encourage one to buy a car,
>-:>any more than one might wish to drive a Pontiac Valhalla.
>-:
>-:Hey, I'd buy a car yclept "Valhalla."
>-:
>-:Gerald
But it better have something spectacular in the way of horns...
John Francis
Bob Ward <bob....@verizon.net> wrote:
>On Wed, 15 Jan 2003 01:07:25 GMT, Gerald Belton
><ger...@beltonphoto.com> wrote:
>
>>-:On Tue, 14 Jan 2003 10:12:42 -0500, Charles A Lieberman
>>-:<cali...@bigfoot.com> wrote:
>>-:
>>-:>I was puzzled when, a few years ago, I saw an advertisement for a car on
>>-:>which the manufacturer had chosen to bestow the name "Avalon." Now, I
>>-:>know what Avalon means (or at least I think I do), and it struck me that
>>-:>the thoughts counjured up thus would hardly encourage one to buy a car,
>>-:>any more than one might wish to drive a Pontiac Valhalla.
>>-:
>>-:Hey, I'd buy a car yclept "Valhalla."
>>-:
>>-:Gerald
>
>
>But it better have something spectacular in the way of horns...
And large brass-bound headlights?
Bob Ward
>-:In article <67n92vkrgoj0jg8b6...@4ax.com>,
>-:Bob Ward <bob....@verizon.net> wrote:
>-:>On Wed, 15 Jan 2003 01:07:25 GMT, Gerald Belton
>-:><ger...@beltonphoto.com> wrote:
>-:>
>-:>>-:On Tue, 14 Jan 2003 10:12:42 -0500, Charles A Lieberman
>-:>>-:<cali...@bigfoot.com> wrote:
>-:>>-:
>-:>>-:>I was puzzled when, a few years ago, I saw an advertisement for a car on
>-:>>-:>which the manufacturer had chosen to bestow the name "Avalon." Now, I
>-:>>-:>know what Avalon means (or at least I think I do), and it struck me that
>-:>>-:>the thoughts counjured up thus would hardly encourage one to buy a car,
>-:>>-:>any more than one might wish to drive a Pontiac Valhalla.
>-:>>-:
>-:>>-:Hey, I'd buy a car yclept "Valhalla."
>-:>>-:
>-:>>-:Gerald
>-:>
>-:>
>-:>But it better have something spectacular in the way of horns...
>-:
>-:
>-:And large brass-bound headlights?
Bumper guards... remember the '56 Caddy?
HWM
Fiat Inferno
R H Draney
news:e1d92vogmig8o074p...@4ax.com:
"Come to Asgard motors, ask for Loki, and take advantage of our big
Ragnarok closeout!"...r
John Francis
HWM <henry.w_EGGS@SPAM_sanet.fi> wrote:
>R H Draney wrote:
>>
>> In article <3E24698B...@sanet.fi>, HWM says...
>> >
>> >Charles A Lieberman wrote:
>> >
>> >> Pontiac Valhalla.
>> >
>> >CMC Gehenna
>>
>> This could prove entertaining....
>>
>> R H "Mazda Ahura" Draney
>
>Fiat Inferno
or the stablemate, Fiat Lux ?
Personally I always rather liked the symbolism of a massive SUV
bearing down on you with the advice "DODGE" prominently displayed.
Roland Hutchinson
> Note that "nova", while not Formal Spanish, is pretty well
> understood
> to mean "new" (Nova Sin gasoline, the bossa nova).
May I risk introducing some information from an authoritative source?
The dictionary of the Real Academia Española, 2001 edition (see
http://www.rae.es ) recognizes the word "nova" as standard Spanish. It
means exactly what the English word "nova" means. I quote in its
entierty the entry from the online version of the dictionary:
nova.
(Del lat. nova, nueva).
1. f. Astr. estrella nova.
("estrella nova" is further defined in the entry for "estrella".)
This does not mean, of course, that native Spanish speakers don't
recognize "nova" as meaning or suggesting "new" in trade names,
Portuguese loans (bossa n.), and similar contexts -- just as English
speakers recognize its meaning in neo-Latin coinages like "Nova
Scotia" and in the names of the Chevy car and the PBS science series on
American TV (where it also alludes to the astronomical meaning, of
course).
OTOH, you can locate several examples of the "No va" UL being vectored
on Spanish-language pages by googling on:
nova "no va" Chevrolet significa
Go figure!
(A partial explanation may lie in the fact that many of those pages,
seem to be have been translated into Spanish from material originally
written in another language. No points awarded for guessing which one!)
--
Roland Hutchinson Will play viola da gamba for food.
NB mail to my_sp...@eudoramail.com is heavily filtered to
remove spam. If your message looks like spam I may not see it.
James Lane
<henry.w_EGGS@SPAM_sanet.fi> wrote:
> R H Draney wrote:
> >
> > In article <3E24698B...@sanet.fi>, HWM says...
> > >
> > >Charles A Lieberman wrote:
> > >
> > >> Pontiac Valhalla.
> > >
> > >CMC Gehenna
> >
> > This could prove entertaining....
> >
> > R H "Mazda Ahura" Draney
>
> Fiat Inferno
Nissan Insult
Ford Fiasco
Honda Affront
Toyota Tragic
Mazda Mistake (Mistaque?)
Eunos Eunos
James "as always, so much easier to come up with funny names than
credible ones" Lane
Nick Spalding
<BA4A5FDC...@10.0.1.2>:
> If you enclude non-US English-speaking territories then I have no
> trouble thinking of car models called Condor and Python. Also I
> remember a car called something like a Stutz Bearcat. Is that an
> animal ?
Your memory is spot on. My step-mother, during her first marriage to
someone much wealthier than my father, had a Stutz Bearcat in the '30s that
she on one occasion at least raced at Brooklands.
--
Nick Spalding
Chris Clarke
HWM <henry.w_EGGS@SPAM_sanet.fi> wrote:
> Fiat Inferno
That's just the V8 version of the Lux, right?
--
Chris Clarke | Editor, Faultline Magazine
www.faultline.org | California Environmental News and Information
Charles A Lieberman
n_t_e_nn_y_@q_ual_c_o_m_m_.c_o_m (Nathan Tenny) wrote:
> In article <BA4A5FDC...@10.0.1.2>,
> Simon Slavin <sla...@hearsay.demon.co.uk@localhost> wrote:
> >Also I
> >remember a car called something like a Stutz Bearcat. Is that an
> >animal ?
>
> Colloquial name for the wolverine, I believe. The only way I ever hear it
> used, though, is as a mild euphemism---"that's a bearcat to fix" seems to
> be a bowdlerization of "that's a bitch to fix". I assume that's a more
> recent usage than the era of the Stutz Bearcat.
I think this is starting to merge with the recent AFCA thread about the
H2.
R H Draney
news:150120031821436029%ji...@triode.net.au:
I've been going around for a couple of years now telling people I
traded my Toyota Plethora for a Plymouth Miasma....r
Ray Depew
: s...@pffcu.com wrote:
: >
: > Which reminds me of the article I read a few years ago in one of the
: > ____ & ______ car magazines (not being coy, I just don't remember which
: > build a supercar called, appropriately enough, the Monaco.
: >
: OK, so my memory is worse than my Googling. A page referring to the
: *Monte Carlo* supercar can be found at
[...]
Not to worry. Them's the kind of errors that send people scurrying to find
pictures of the Goodrich blimp, or going into Burger King and asking for a Big
Mac.
--
Regards
Ray Depew ray_...@agilent.com
"Bob was mean to me, I think. I can't remember when or why, but he was."
-- John H. explains killfile logic on alt.folklore.urban
Ray Depew
: But I am cheerfully willing to admit that the editorial staff of any of
: the first three publications might have made up the story of the Monte
: Carlo based on the Casablanca letter you cite.
Don't give up that easily. This is a familiar motif. We keep hearing the
stories about Apple and Megaburger Inc. trying to enjoin legitimate
businesses with "Mc" or "Mac" in their names, even when the businesses
bear the owner's names. Here in the kapewter world, we had Apple suing
Microsoft, claiming that they own the GUI concept of small-w "windows",
and Xerox PARC in the background saying "Excuuuuuse me?".
--
R
R
Burroughs Guy
> Your memory is spot on. My step-mother, during her first marriage to
> someone much wealthier than my father, had a Stutz Bearcat in the '30s
that
> she on one occasion at least raced at Brooklands.
How many times did she marry someone much wealthier than your father?
Nathan Tenny
Ray Depew <r...@ftc.agilent.com> wrote:
[on excessive-intellectual-property-rights suits]
>Here in the kapewter world, we had Apple suing
>Microsoft, claiming that they own the GUI concept of small-w "windows",
>and Xerox PARC in the background saying "Excuuuuuse me?".
Well, wait, let's not be vectorious here. Apple was at some pains to
convey the impression that they weren't attempting to assert ownership of
the whole concept of windowing (they didn't sue anyone over X, after all,
or DesqView), but that they considered the Windows, well, "look and
feel"---the interface design, basically---to be ripped off from them.
Whether that was a good basis for a lawsuit is obviously BoRable, but I
think ya gotta give the situation credit for more complexity than "claiming
that they own the GUI concept of small-w 'windows'".
Burroughs Guy
> >--
> >Burroughs Guy
> >I knew the MCP when it was just a chess program.
>
> You know, _Tron_ would have been a lot funnier if the MCP had
> originally been emacs. But fewer people would have understood
> the joke.
Tron contained several Burroughs gags -- MCP was MCP, de-res was DS, "We
don't have time for the whims of users" was Burroughs management
philosophy. Emacs wouldn't fit with that theme. Not many people got
those jokes anyway.
The unspoken implication is that MCP stood for "Master Chess Program". I
don't think any chess programm reached master rating before MCP meant
"Master Control Program", but there may have been a chess program named
MCP regardless.
Nick Spalding
<YmFydGljdXM=.9fcfde1a18ba4e44...@1042656635.cotse.net>:
> Nick Spalding wrote:
>
> > Your memory is spot on. My step-mother, during her first marriage to
> > someone much wealthier than my father, had a Stutz Bearcat in the '30s
> that
> > she on one occasion at least raced at Brooklands.
>
> How many times did she marry someone much wealthier than your father?
Only once! Some parentheses required there I think.
--
Nick Spalding