OMG! THATS SO FUNNY! Good one. :D

LOL guess thats how they say it in England and Germany. :)

I'm still confused. *L* Should we pronounce the name "Portia" as "Port-tee-Uh", too? My problem with pronouciation is derived from having a mother who lived on "House-ton St." in NYC and prefers La Gwadia airport and from spending some time in NOLA where I learned to pronounce street names. My favorite was "Milan" as "MY-lan". Talk about your Franch influence.

Hi,

Yea, I lean toward perfectionism, but that's me - I pronounce it correctly. Others may do as they wish.

If we're all of a sudden gonna become the Pronunciation Police, there are much greater offenders out there than those who say Porsh...

Happy Motoring!... Jim'99

I saw that commercial. Makes me mad.



Didn't it say "PORSHHH Boxster and BMW X5?"



Wtf? X5? What do these cars have to do w/ anything?

My wife translates German for a living and she's got some FUNNY stories about language screw ups.

My favorite is the Vicks corp. They didnt listen to advice when they launched their media blitz years ago and kept their name: Vicks. The way Vicks is spelled when you pronouce it in German it means f*ck. Too hilarious!! Imagine the ads: YOur coughing, sneezing and have a sore throat. ALl you need is a good Vicks and you'll feel better. :cheers:

Hi,

Yea, kinda like Chevy trying to market the Nova in Mexico... ;)

Happy Motoring!... Jim'99

Not so true on that one.

http://www.snopes.com/business/misxlate/nova.asp

-aren

Hi,

Interesting, I didn't even know about the 'No Go' angle, but in Mexico, Nova is a slang term for a particular part of the Female Anatomy, and it was this reference which reputedly caused issues with Sales...

Happy Motoring!... Jim'99

Wow, thats pretty amazing, because not only had I heard this same story and thought it WAS true, but the Speed Chanel even had the same silly story in a documentary about this car. Guess they did not do enough research??? :confused:

In that case, I do apologize because I thought that you were referring to the "No Go" angle which everyone makes. I was not aware of the slang would of which you speak.

-aren

Actually, douche, meaning shower, is a two syllable word in German.

Doo-shuh

-Michael

Hi,

Actually, it is also a French word, also meaning Shower, Soak, Drench - pronounced Doosh ...

Circuler en voiture Heureux ! (Happy Motoring!)... Jim'99

That is interesting. If you do a google search on this, there are hundreds of hits on the well-known "No Go" reference that everyone except you seems to know about, but zero hits on this slang meaning. I also ran it through a Spanish Slang lookup web page, and got zero hits with "nova".

Can you tell us more about this slang word, tied to the Chevy Nova not doing well in Latin American countries, that no one seems to know about?

Curious...

Hi,

I'm just relating what a friend of mine in Mexico told me - about the slang and the car. He said there's too much Machismo for guys to buy a Car named P*ssy. While my Spanish is passing, I'm not well versed in the use of it's local slang, but he's born and raised, longtime friend and I don't think he was BSing me...

Happy Motoring!... Jim'99

A Mexico-born coworker, fluent in Spanish, says he's never heard of it. Maybe it's a regional thing? Curious. You'd think that, with the nature of the internet, there'd be at least one web page about this, but they're all about "no go", and how the sales actually did quite well. Hmmm... oh well. :cheers:

That's funny JBARROW because even though I rented a car in Germany with a GPS I still needed to buy a map because Austria wasn't listed in my pick list.. later found out it was under "O" for OSTERREICH.. and yes then i could find my way to "Wien".. which was a complete waste of time anyway.. "Austria"sucked!!