26th September 1998
Would you buy electronical bits from a company called "SICK"?
Would you buy your groceries from a supermarket chain called "Mutant"?
Would you buy bathroom fittings from a shop called "Mafart"?
Would you buy a breakfast cereal called "Crap", or a type of canned
something-or-other called "Boloks"?
The company "Exxon" did a search on various potential names to make sure it wasn't a strange word in some obscure language. As far as we know, Exxon is the name of an oil company and not a slang word for pig testicles in Croatian...
The examples given above didn't even bother to look across "the pond". To the French, it is perfectly reasonable to shop in the Super U or the E.Leclerc or even... the Mutant. On the other hand, maybe they are smarter than we give them credit for, and the supermarket specialises in genetically modified foods? Or maybe they never watched B movies with naff special effects...
It is interesting looking for English words in France - and I'll concede that for the French, it
is probably just as fun looking for mangled French in England.
But if you are ever in France, go into one of these 'vetements' shops sometime... somewhere such
as the "Distri-Centre" and take a look at the stuff written on the backpacks and
T-shirts. I've seen amazing phrases like "Totally English Holiday - Best Scottish Dog!"
written across things. Not only are they not making much sense, they're forgetting the subtle
fact that England isn't Scotland (and vice versa - something I'm sure both sides is glad of).
Translations are an interesting thing. A famous double-translation (into a given language, and back again) was conducted between English and Russian. The phrase "Out of sight, out of mind" was doubly translated to "Invisible lunatic".
More recently the phrase "Acorn Computers", when translated into French and back again
becomes "Computers of nipple"!
Honest! If you don't believe me, find your way to Babelfish and try it for yourself.