Hi all,

Warning -- off topic.

These must be true since I heard them on Paul Harvey News:

> These are the nominees for the Chevy Nova Award.
> This is  given out in honor of the GM's fiasco in trying
> to market this car in Central and South America.  "No va"
> means, of course,  in Spanish, "it doesn't go".
>
> 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)  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!