The first time I lived in Seoul, I was warned to take only taxis from a large company as the smaller ones tended (so I was told) to cheat you. In the middle of a very cold winter, a couple of foreign friends and I were hailing a taxi and I kept rejecting the ones that did not have 個人 (개인/‘gae-in’) on the roof. When we finally got a ‘gae-in’ taxi, one of my friends asked me why I rejected the others. When I told him why, he said, “This taxi is from the smallest possible company! It means ‘privately owned’!”
The Daily Telegraph (UK) regularly publishes examples sent in by readers. You’d have to register to see them online, but one of their books that I was given reports that in Denmark you might find yourself caught up in a Fartkontrol. And in Czechia, you might encounter the Horní police.
This seems to be a common enough experience that I heard it a few weeks ago while listening to some etymology podcasts. (Plus I also heard it when I lived in Central Europe.) So you’re hardly alone.
There’s also the story of the American in Germany who carefully memorized the name of the street he had parked on, so that he wouldn’t get lost: “Einbahnstrasse.” When he later asked for directions back to “Einbahnstrasse,” no one could help him.
“Einbahnstrasse,” of course, means “one way street.”
That’s the one I was going to post, but with a real story. When my dad visited Germany, he was impressed by seeing streets with names like “Eisenhowerstrasse” and “Trumanstrasse”, named after prominent Americans. But he couldn’t figure out who “Einbahnstrasse” was named after.
The DT book mentioned above has foodstuffs named Knackers, and Crap. There’s a restaurant chain in Spain called Ars, and indeed a French wine called Arse.
