Traveling around Uganda, Kenya, and Tanzania in 2016, I saw some businesses with names that seemed bizarre from an American perspective.
We drove past a bar in some village called “Club No Class”. My guess is they mean people of all social classes can drink there, as in “there are no class divisions here, we’re all the same”, and were unaware of the meaning of “no class” in other English speaking countries. Or I suppose it could just be “we’re a dive bar with no class and we’re proud of it”.
But the strangest one was the big sign by the side of the road advertising the “Smart Pork Hotel”. I can only assume that expression must have some meaning to the locals, but it just sounds really strange to me.
Not to speak for @Johnny_L.A, but we used to have a Doper named kn*ckers (last seen in '03, I think), whose name was, I assume, inspired by this Monty Python sketch (see especially 0:45-1:00):
Ah, TY. Have seen Monty Python (liked the movies more), don’t remember that scene.
There is a list of words not allowed on British TV (not just the BBC) at various times of day, depending on the channel and surrounding programmes. Comes up in my job occasionally (subtitling) and leads to quite formal but nonetheless amusing emails. Obvs neither knckers nor knckers are actually censored.
There is a delicious bean stew popular in Egypt which is usually transliterated into English as “foul.”
And since there is no distinction between the B and P sound in Arabic, Egyptians writing English sometimes unknowingly select the wrong one. “No barking” signs were common in people’s driveways, and I saw more than one menu offering “crap soup.”
For a few years I’ve wondered about the etymology of the Kn*ckers with an O to mean “breasts”. I had assumed that it was a crude reference to movement until I saw one of those door knockers that was in the form of a pendulous piece of metal with a knob attached at the bottom. I had seen them everywhere for decades, but only then did I realize it looked sort of anatomical. I then wondered if maybe this shape of some door knockers influenced the term.
This doesn’t really fit into the category of words that are funny in other countries, but that reminded me of a badly translated English menu I encountered in Costa Rica which included “hole jumbo shrimp” and “tender lion wraped in baco”. (The misspelling of “wrapped” is how it was written on the menu).
The same thing for Bob Dole and Farsi. Well, actually his name meant “big dick” in that language. Iranian news editors were very happy he lost the 1996 election.
Fahren is the German verb “to travel,” and fahrt is one conjugation of the verb. As you can imagine, this creates a lot of mirth in German classes, particularly at the public-school level.
Damrong is a not uncommon name in Thailand. The A is the A in “father,” the O a long O.
In Dutch, one says Good Morning as goeiemorgen. The first syllable is pronounced similar to chuj, which is Polish and Russian slang for male organ.
Another one for laughs is the beer brand Hoegaarden.
