"poloch" product naming

frank0314

LeatherGryphon said:

I didn't get along with German.  I found the sentence structure too confusing.  I did better with Spanish.  And my conversational Russian is on the same level as a 1 year old, but I'm not a language person.  I just have never been exposed to a long enough situation where I needed to use the language.  I can read newspaper headlines, street signs, maps, and store names, and I know how to pronouce words in those languages but don't ask me to talk to you.  I'll just talk louder in English.

As Bruse Willis says in the Fifth Element, " Lady I only speak 2 languages, English and bad English"

Virtual_World

I'm not sure, but it could be that they were thinking of the insect that bears that name "Polydrusus chrysomela (POLOCH)"

.

 

Mattymanx

Loony said:

LeatherGryphon said:

I didn't get along with German.  I found the sentence structure too confusing.  I did better with Spanish.  And my conversational Russian is on the same level as a 1 year old, but I'm not a language person.  I just have never been exposed to a long enough situation where I needed to use the language.  I can read newspaper headlines, street signs, maps, and store names, and I know how to pronouce words in those languages but don't ask me to talk to you.  I'll just talk louder in English.

 

German is very similar to english.

Lets grab some words from your message:

structure = Struktur

better = besser

old = alt

person = Person

long = lang

situation = Situation

can = kann

So there is a lot similar ;)

 

Thats why I took grade 10 german, my french teacher showed us the simularities between english and german and suggested that we give it a go. 

Richard Haseltine

Mattymanx said:

Loony said:

LeatherGryphon said:

I didn't get along with German.  I found the sentence structure too confusing.  I did better with Spanish.  And my conversational Russian is on the same level as a 1 year old, but I'm not a language person.  I just have never been exposed to a long enough situation where I needed to use the language.  I can read newspaper headlines, street signs, maps, and store names, and I know how to pronouce words in those languages but don't ask me to talk to you.  I'll just talk louder in English.

 

German is very similar to english.

Lets grab some words from your message:

structure = Struktur

better = besser

old = alt

person = Person

long = lang

situation = Situation

can = kann

So there is a lot similar ;)

 

Thats why I took grade 10 german, my french teacher showed us the simularities between english and german and suggested that we give it a go. 

But in English we don't have to worry about cases. In that respect german is more like Russian (or Latin) - most other European languages, at elast western European, have gleefully jettisoned such baggage. Just think of the mess my typing could make in a cased language.

Gordig

Richard Haseltine said:

Mattymanx said:

Loony said:

LeatherGryphon said:

I didn't get along with German.  I found the sentence structure too confusing.  I did better with Spanish.  And my conversational Russian is on the same level as a 1 year old, but I'm not a language person.  I just have never been exposed to a long enough situation where I needed to use the language.  I can read newspaper headlines, street signs, maps, and store names, and I know how to pronouce words in those languages but don't ask me to talk to you.  I'll just talk louder in English.

 

German is very similar to english.

Lets grab some words from your message:

structure = Struktur

better = besser

old = alt

person = Person

long = lang

situation = Situation

can = kann

So there is a lot similar ;)

 

Thats why I took grade 10 german, my french teacher showed us the simularities between english and german and suggested that we give it a go. 

But in English we don't have to worry about cases. In that respect german is more like Russian (or Latin) - most other European languages, at elast western European, have gleefully jettisoned such baggage. Just think of the mess my typing could make in a cased language.

English doesn't even conjugate verbs beyond copula.

Sven Dullah

The word bollox springs to mind...

fred9803

It's quite obvious the naming error was intentional...... just look at all the free publicity the PA is getting! Just kidding, I'm sure it was just a silly faux pas .

kyoto kid

Rendy Andy said:

Quite a few companies already had to learn that lesson, some products are even sold under different names in some countries. "Irish Mist" did not sell very good in Germany, because its name means "Irish Crap" in German. So it was renamed to "Irisch Moos" (Irish moss). And it sometimes really gets funny with words that spread widely over the world and get combined with words from other languages. For example "restaurant", originally a French word. In Hungary, some offer eating from a traditional wooden plate, called "fatal". In Germany, "Bad" is the name for a public pool, and some public pools have a special place where they offer something to eat. Are you brave enough to enter a "Fatal Restaurant" or a "Bad Restaurant"?

...then there are the words Ausfarht and Einfarht seen while on the  Autobahn which actually translate to "Exit" and "Entrance" but would elicit giggles from American students on holiday in germany when they saw them because in the sitght and sound of the word "Farht" conjured other "connotations" in their minds.

Loony

Richard Haseltine said:

But in English we don't have to worry about cases. In that respect german is more like Russian (or Latin) - most other European languages, at elast western European, have gleefully jettisoned such baggage. Just think of the mess my typing could make in a cased language.

I did understand NOTHING in the highlighted part xD was that english?^^...

LeatherGryphon

Russian has a lot of nouns similar to English or other Western European languages.  They've been borrowed, but just look different because of the Cyrillic alphabet.  The basic familial and daily life stuff is Russian, but a lot of technical, legal, and pop culture words tend to have universal roots.  French had a strong influence on the Russian courts of Peter The Great, and Catherine the Great.

murgatroyd314

Loony said:

LeatherGryphon said:

I didn't get along with German.  I found the sentence structure too confusing.  I did better with Spanish.  And my conversational Russian is on the same level as a 1 year old, but I'm not a language person.  I just have never been exposed to a long enough situation where I needed to use the language.  I can read newspaper headlines, street signs, maps, and store names, and I know how to pronouce words in those languages but don't ask me to talk to you.  I'll just talk louder in English.

 

German is very similar to english.

Lets grab some words from your message:

structure = Struktur

better = besser

old = alt

person = Person

long = lang

situation = Situation

can = kann

So there is a lot similar ;)

And a lot different. Would you rather have someone give you an English gift, or German Gift? 

Sevrin

LeatherGryphon said:

Checking for unfortunate names can be important.  Consider the Chevrolet "Nova" automobile.  In Spanish "No va" means "No go".   Name was changed in some countries to counteract low sales.​  Ah ha!  At last, a good purpose for the Marketing department.

That's an urban legend and untrue.

Did the Chevrolet Nova Fail to Sell in Spanish-Speaking Countries? | Snopes.com 

Anyway, I think this is a non-issue.

PrefoX

Tomhip said:

PrefoX said:

Tomhip said:

Loony said:

Tomhip said:

According to google there are 7,100 languages, are we gonna check all of them for every word on site or do we have a criteria to strike some as irellevant (and offend their users even more) ?

I remember when Runescape introduced their aggressive naughty words filter and I tried to talk with one of my mates, in *our* language. We were getting censored all the time because parts of our every day words were making parts of naughty words....

Soon we will have to communicate in "oohs" and "aahs" only to not offend someone...

1. it was not really a complaining, I just laughed about it and wanted to let others know it.

2. German is a very popular Language it is in the EU/US zone very much used and just yesterday did I hear in the radio, that Germany should become the "leader" of the EU, whatever that means...

3. I played some games too and I hate the random wordfilters, even for my german was a lot blocked, its mainly in Asian games with hard censorship (thanks to China maybe?) and then ist kinda every second word censored...

 

1. If you look few posts above there was an actual complaint about this made in sales thread - I was just talking about similar issues in general, nothing personal against you.

2. German is on 13th place according to Lingue (first result I got on Google, I am lazy) , and it wont be popular in many European countries for... lets say historical reasons, any time soon :D

3. So you know how annoying censorship can get if its not stopped then :D

actually most spoken language in Europe and in science its on #2 world wide

and don't forget that english and a ton of other languages are germanic languages

Germanic != German....

And good luck popularizing German in countries where you were encouraged to learn it at a gunpoint... ask Ukrainian how would they liek to learn Russian....

 

who is trying to popularize german in any country? and germanic is obviously not german. who said that? why so agressive?...

 

Peter Wade

miladyderyni_173d399f47 said:

I suggest NOT trying to buy this via PayPal. They have refused Daz transactions in the past when the product name triggers their Crime or Sexytimes Detector algorithms. IIRC, 1 or 2 items were renamed due to this.

I also recall briefly playing in a Play By Post sci-fi RPG campaign decades ago. The forum that hosted it used one of the programs that replaced vulgar words, and its parameters were super-strict. It always replaced "cockpit" with - I'm NOT joking - "thingy-pit"!

I bought it using PayPal with no problem. Maybe they don't know any german naughty words, I didn't until now. 

Peter Wade

Richard Haseltine said:

Mattymanx said:

Loony said:

LeatherGryphon said:

I didn't get along with German.  I found the sentence structure too confusing.  I did better with Spanish.  And my conversational Russian is on the same level as a 1 year old, but I'm not a language person.  I just have never been exposed to a long enough situation where I needed to use the language.  I can read newspaper headlines, street signs, maps, and store names, and I know how to pronouce words in those languages but don't ask me to talk to you.  I'll just talk louder in English.

 

German is very similar to english.

Lets grab some words from your message:

structure = Struktur

better = besser

old = alt

person = Person

long = lang

situation = Situation

can = kann

So there is a lot similar ;)

 

Thats why I took grade 10 german, my french teacher showed us the simularities between english and german and suggested that we give it a go. 

But in English we don't have to worry about cases. In that respect german is more like Russian (or Latin) - most other European languages, at elast western European, have gleefully jettisoned such baggage. Just think of the mess my typing could make in a cased language.

A few English words have held on their cases. I me and my, they them and their are nominative, accusative and genitive cases but I can't think of any others. You could say we still have the genitive case but we do it consistently by adding 's to the word, you don't have to remember them all.

I did Latin (badly) at school. Latin had six cases but I can't remember what dative and ablative were for.

Gordig

Peter Wade said:

Richard Haseltine said:

Mattymanx said:

Loony said:

LeatherGryphon said:

I didn't get along with German.  I found the sentence structure too confusing.  I did better with Spanish.  And my conversational Russian is on the same level as a 1 year old, but I'm not a language person.  I just have never been exposed to a long enough situation where I needed to use the language.  I can read newspaper headlines, street signs, maps, and store names, and I know how to pronouce words in those languages but don't ask me to talk to you.  I'll just talk louder in English.

 

German is very similar to english.

Lets grab some words from your message:

structure = Struktur

better = besser

old = alt

person = Person

long = lang

situation = Situation

can = kann

So there is a lot similar ;)

 

Thats why I took grade 10 german, my french teacher showed us the simularities between english and german and suggested that we give it a go. 

But in English we don't have to worry about cases. In that respect german is more like Russian (or Latin) - most other European languages, at elast western European, have gleefully jettisoned such baggage. Just think of the mess my typing could make in a cased language.

A few English words have held on their cases. I me and my, they them and their are nominative, accusative and genitive cases but I can't think of any others. You could say we still have the genitive case but we do it consistently by adding 's to the word, you don't have to remember them all.

I did Latin (badly) at school. Latin had six cases but I can't remember what dative and ablative were for.

I learned five: nominative ("I"), genetive ("my"), dative ("to/for me"), accusative ("me"), and ablative ("by me"). 

ANGELREAPER1972

how about some of the descriptions on asian products translated into english some of those are really bad/funny

PrefoX

I guess as long as it is not discriminating its fine, as people said before, its impossible to check for all languages

Masterstroke

murgatroyd314 said:

And a lot different. Would you rather have someone give you an English gift, or German Gift? 

Careful! Never accept "Gift" from a german 

PrefoX

I think he was alluding to that :D

maikdecker

kyoto kid said:

Rendy Andy said:

Quite a few companies already had to learn that lesson, some products are even sold under different names in some countries. "Irish Mist" did not sell very good in Germany, because its name means "Irish Crap" in German. So it was renamed to "Irisch Moos" (Irish moss). And it sometimes really gets funny with words that spread widely over the world and get combined with words from other languages. For example "restaurant", originally a French word. In Hungary, some offer eating from a traditional wooden plate, called "fatal". In Germany, "Bad" is the name for a public pool, and some public pools have a special place where they offer something to eat. Are you brave enough to enter a "Fatal Restaurant" or a "Bad Restaurant"?

...then there are the words Ausfarht and Einfarht seen while on the  Autobahn which actually translate to "Exit" and "Entrance" but would elicit giggles from American students on holiday in germany when they saw them because in the sitght and sound of the word "Farht" conjured other "connotations" in their minds.

Just to be the official german spoilsport here: it's Einfahrt and Ausfahrt. So hrt and not rht. Common mistake that english speaking people do, because for them things like "right", "might" and suchlike train them to put the h right in front of the t.

Happens a lot with german words using a "ie" combination when written down by an english speaking person (most notable when they are from the colonies), like "Weiner Sausage" (for the sausage that's called "Wiener Würstchen" in Germany and "Frankfurter Würstchen" in Austria...)

A very prominent place for the crippling of the german language is Hollywood, btw. Many signs, showing names for shops, streets or just the usual "Achtung!" warnings are so utterly wrong translated, that facepalms are not rare when seeing them... happens usually when not the full text is translated in context, but word by word.

And for all english speakers something austrian to laugh about: Guess how the village of Fugging was named until 2021 and why the name was changed...

Write Idea

maikdecker said:

And for all english speakers something austrian to laugh about: Guess how the village of Fugging was named until 2021 and why the name was changed...

I loved telling people that story!  There were only three signs in the ENTIRE little city and all of them had cameras on them, because of high theft rates and other social interactions.  One place in France, which I'm surprised no one mentions, is Bitche, France (I believe it's pronounced, "Beesh").  My parents met in West Germany and they went there on their first date.

Another fun one is the Swedish word "exit or coming-off" is a derogatory word starting with an S and ending with a T.

PerttiA

Write Idea said:

Another fun one is the Swedish word "exit or coming-off" is a derogatory word starting with an S and ending with a T.

You had me scratching my head for a while, but you meant THAT word  

Masterstroke

I have seen street sign in Denmark saying "Fart Kontrol".

LeatherGryphon

Masterstroke said:

I have seen street sign in Denmark saying "Fart Kontrol".

Perhaps from one of these companies?

https://www.environmental-expert.com/companies/keyword-valve-manufacturer-7983/location-finland ;

Richard Haseltine

Peter Wade said:

Richard Haseltine said:

Mattymanx said:

Loony said:

LeatherGryphon said:

I didn't get along with German.  I found the sentence structure too confusing.  I did better with Spanish.  And my conversational Russian is on the same level as a 1 year old, but I'm not a language person.  I just have never been exposed to a long enough situation where I needed to use the language.  I can read newspaper headlines, street signs, maps, and store names, and I know how to pronouce words in those languages but don't ask me to talk to you.  I'll just talk louder in English.

 

German is very similar to english.

Lets grab some words from your message:

structure = Struktur

better = besser

old = alt

person = Person

long = lang

situation = Situation

can = kann

So there is a lot similar ;)

 

Thats why I took grade 10 german, my french teacher showed us the simularities between english and german and suggested that we give it a go. 

But in English we don't have to worry about cases. In that respect german is more like Russian (or Latin) - most other European languages, at elast western European, have gleefully jettisoned such baggage. Just think of the mess my typing could make in a cased language.

A few English words have held on their cases. I me and my, they them and their are nominative, accusative and genitive cases but I can't think of any others. You could say we still have the genitive case but we do it consistently by adding 's to the word, you don't have to remember them all.

Yes, I nearly mentioned the possessives and pronouns as exceptions.

I did Latin (badly) at school. Latin had six cases but I can't remember what dative and ablative were for.

Russian, as I recall, has seven.

Richard Haseltine

Loony said:

Richard Haseltine said:

But in English we don't have to worry about cases. In that respect german is more like Russian (or Latin) - most other European languages, at elast western European, have gleefully jettisoned such baggage. Just think of the mess my typing could make in a cased language.

I did understand NOTHING in the highlighted part xD was that english?^^...

those languages have largely stopped using cases, though they used to have them, much to the relief of their users - "Wheeeee! Goodbye and good riddance to cases!"

richardandtracy

I once drove through a Bavarian village whose name is pronounced Venk to English ears. Not how it's spelt. There is a local mountain too. See https://earth.google.com/web/search/WANKE,+BAVARIA/@47.51289502,11.16288216,1392.35264017a,7679.9772788d,35y,25.06742467h,43.76903549t,-0r/data=CnkaTxJJCiUweDQ3OWQwN2EyMGRjNDIwM2I6MHgxYjhjM2RlYjdjMjEwMzQxGRBnNKjswEdAIWev42SHSSZAKg5XQU5LRSwgQkFWQVJJQRgBIAEiJgokCWBZT-LYVyxAEVxZT-LYVyzAGdDUf61hizVAIZrKR9YDKVHA

Regards,

Richard

Peter Wade

Gordig said:

Peter Wade said:

Richard Haseltine said:

Mattymanx said:

Loony said:

LeatherGryphon said:

I didn't get along with German.  I found the sentence structure too confusing.  I did better with Spanish.  And my conversational Russian is on the same level as a 1 year old, but I'm not a language person.  I just have never been exposed to a long enough situation where I needed to use the language.  I can read newspaper headlines, street signs, maps, and store names, and I know how to pronouce words in those languages but don't ask me to talk to you.  I'll just talk louder in English.

 

German is very similar to english.

Lets grab some words from your message:

structure = Struktur

better = besser

old = alt

person = Person

long = lang

situation = Situation

can = kann

So there is a lot similar ;)

 

Thats why I took grade 10 german, my french teacher showed us the simularities between english and german and suggested that we give it a go. 

But in English we don't have to worry about cases. In that respect german is more like Russian (or Latin) - most other European languages, at elast western European, have gleefully jettisoned such baggage. Just think of the mess my typing could make in a cased language.

A few English words have held on their cases. I me and my, they them and their are nominative, accusative and genitive cases but I can't think of any others. You could say we still have the genitive case but we do it consistently by adding 's to the word, you don't have to remember them all.

I did Latin (badly) at school. Latin had six cases but I can't remember what dative and ablative were for.

I learned five: nominative ("I"), genetive ("my"), dative ("to/for me"), accusative ("me"), and ablative ("by me"). 

Our latin lessons included the vocative case for being spoken to (o Romans), but from what I can remember, for almost all words the nominative and vocative were the same.

Richard Haseltine

Well, if we are on a road trip https://www.theguardian.com/science/2023/jan/21/next-stop-twatt-my-tour-of-britains-fantastically-filthy-placenames