I saw an aftermarket car accessories place called Race Wars.
I know it’s pronounced “POO-kit” but any Thai business (restaurant, etc.) that has Phuket in their name is good for a laugh.
I’m surprised no one has mentioned the (now defunct) website of ball-point pen marketers who wished to evoke visions of being on an island. You remember [noparse]www.penisland.com[/noparse]?
But not as difficult as for the owners to attract tenants in the first place.
Cummins Onan Generators? I think I’ve seen some of their stuff around town.
Systems Operator? Significant Other?
I always thought it was pronounced “Foo-KAY”. Where’s Siam Sam? He should have a definitive answer…
We have a T-shirt shop (the kind that print up T-shirts for softball teams) named, of course, “Holy Shirt!” Late night commercial featuring kids all lined up screaming ‘Holy Shirt!’ and I feel like screaming back ‘STFU’!
Foo-Kay?? This ain’t French!
It is pronounced “Poo get”.
The “Phu” is pronounced like the slang word for feces, “poo,” or as in Winnie the Pooh." (“Ph” is always a hard P sound, unlike P alone, which usually means a sound halfway between P and B that we don’t really have, but it’s closer to B by my ear. The “ket” in Phuket is pronounced like the English word “get.” (K alone is generally pronounced as G. “Kh” gets the hard K sound.)
Side note: PH is always the hard P, and the letter P by itself ought to be the B/P hybrid all the time, but sometimes it’s also the hard P, all part of the confusion over transcribing over here. For instance, many know of our coastal town of Pattaya. From it’s pronunciation, it really ought to be spelled Phatthaya – and actually is on some municipal signs – but the Pattaya spelling has become conventional. That one is the hard P sound, too, despite the lack of an H.
Arçelik - They make washing machines in Turkey. (the ç is actually pronounced as ch which spoils the effect but seeing the posters about getting really clean underwear is schoolboy giggles good fun!)
Pot O’ Gold - the porta-potties
Pot Of Gold - The chocolates
http://www.onebrick.org/blog/uploaded_images/Lloyd-with-Pot-of-Gold-786472.jpg
:smack:
Check the websites of Secrets Exposed Live and Experts Exchange.
The second of these, btw, did not formerly have the dash in the middle…
Thanks for the linguistic heads-up! I have to confess my knowledge of Thai is woefully non-existent, but at least now I know Phuket isn’t pronounced as if it were quasi-French. 
I think Snopes said it was a joke site?
Still funny, though.
Well, they are from KKKarp
Unfortunately, Deloitte has rebranded; they are now “Deloitte” only–the Touche is gone. Actually, “Deloitte” is now followed by a little green dot (not a period!). Deloitte paid a marketing firm millions (I heard $5 m) to come up with just the right shade of green for that dot, so be sure to admire it.
Dr. Rex G. Teeple is an optometrist around here. Every year, he would try to explain the problem to the Yellow Pages people, but they just didn’t get it. Every year, the new directory said:
Teeple, Rex GOD. When he got an offer to become part of the Ossip eye care chain, he jumped at the chance.
If I remember right, Custer Battles was one of the shoddy and/or crooked construction firms with a no-bid contract to build things in Iraq. Through several layers of subcontracts, the money disappeared and nothing got built.
There’s a place near Anderson University where a succession of restaurants, coffee shops, and bakeries sprang up and died. One day, there was a big yellow and red banner on the empty shop. It said "The Flop. I kept an eye on it. Apparently, it failed before it even opened.
http://parks.ky.gov/findparks/recparks/bb/ There is Big Bone Lick State Park.
There’s a winery in New Zealand called Te Mata.
In Spanish, this means “It kills you”!
Similarly, in Bath England there is a “Bath Erections” construction company. We had quite the attack of the giggles over seeing their signs everywhere.