A really strange question along the lines of the Chevy Nova and Mexico. You know, Chevy supposedly didn’t many Nova’s in Mexico because “No va” means “It doesn’t go” in Spanish. That was discounted in this Straight Dope article:
Now I have one that is circulating here in Germany. I have been told that Mitsubishi hasn’t been selling many Pajero SUVs in Spain because Pajero is (or sounds like) a Spanish slang word for a person who likes to whack the weasel. It probably wouldn’t help to ask an America person of Hispanic descent. Supposedly “Pajero” was made up by a PR company for Mitsubishi, and they didn’t make the connection because slang doesn’t neccessarily get listed in the dictionary.
I was noodling around in my kanji/kana dictionary the other night and, on a tangent, found the kanji for “sexual intercourse” - sei kõ (that’s supposed to be a long ‘o’ there). It took me a moment to figure out where I’d seen those particular words before - plastered over any number of watch faces all across the country. Is this another meaningless coincidence or is there a story behind it?
Under “vehiculos”, you’ll see the car you know as the Pajero. But it’s called “Montero”. Which, to my untrained Spanish ear, appears to mean something like “Mountaineer” (and hell, maybe THAT’s slang for something dirty as well ;)). I’m sure someone more qualified will correct me when I’m wrong.
I put it through a Spanish to English translator, but it didn’t come up with anything. The closest match is pájaro, which means parrot in English. I also tried my Spanish slang book (!Mierda! by Frances Talaversa Berger) and the only slang listed for masturbation was manajatar.
Actually, I think “Mitsubishi Masturbator” has a nice ring to it.
I think it would be great if Mitsubishi did an historical overview of their company. They could start with the Zero fighters of WWII and lead up to the current vehicles.
Yup, that’s what it means - although it is not necessarily familiar to all speakers of Spanish. Mexicans & Central Americans certainly know the phrase… Funny, it’s marketed under that name in the Philippines, where quite a few people are familiar with Spanish.
