Windpassing, embarrassing town names, etc

Factual Questions
1

The tiny villiage Fucking has a name that causes great amusement to English speaking tourists, as does Windpassing, and tourists go out of their way to stay in the Wankhaus. A few foreign products have been given unfortunate names. And as for the former Japanese prime minister Mr Takeshita…

Are there any English language placenames or product names that provoke similar amusement in foreigners?

(Dont bother with the urban legends about Esso meaning ‘stalled car’ in Japanese, or that Nova means ‘it doesnt work’ in Spanish, and I already know what Peter means in French.)

2

You’ve forgotten Intercourse, Pennsylvania.

3

forgot Blue Ball, PA

Here’s a link to Intercourse (the town, you perverts).

4

I’m actually looking for English language placenames that seem funny ** in foreign languages.**

I already have a list of placenames that sound funny in English.

5

I’m told that “Pinole”, a town in the SF Bay Area, is Welsh for “asshole” …

6

Don’t forget the car Nova which didn’t do too well in Spanish-speaking countries where it translates literally to “no go.”

Coca-Cola, when rendered phonetically into Chinese (don’t recall which dialect) comes out at “bite the wax tadpole.”

Check this out for more.

7

I’ve read that the Mitsubishi Montero used to be named the Mitsubishi Pajero. Then they found out that in Spanish, “pajero” means “masturbate.”

8

Peter. Please don’t get mad with me for changing the name of the thread.

While I’m not a prude, and I wouldn’t have changed it to suit myself, we had a complaint from a member who accesses the board at work. When the word “Fucking” pops up on the thread page, they could get into trouble, even though they’re doing nothing wrong. That’s why I changed it.

Hope you can understand the position here.

samclem GQ moderator

9

Actually, “masturbator.” It’s still called Pajero in places like Australia which don’t have a significant Spanish-speaking population.

The Lone Ranger’s sidekick Tonto is called “Toro” in Spanish-speaking countries, since tonto means “foolish.”

10

More on Pajero

11

Are there many Pajeros in Australia?

12

Yes, but they call them "wankers’’ there. :slight_smile:

13

Snopes

14

Not a geographic name but a product name of sorts: the last name of Johnny Depp (i.e. John Christopher Depp II) means ‘idiot’ in German (1). It probably makes for slighly better box office success of his movies as his name recognition in German-speaking countries is better than it would be otherwise.
(1) (strictly speaking the word is a South German/Austrian regionalism, but it’s understood in all of Germany and probably also in all other German-speaking regions.

15

Does UK English count as foreign? Blue Knob would never be used as a resort name in the UK (although it may be appropriate as a ski resort).

16

MTV Jackass did a show in a town called Myanus.

17

Oh man, those are great! I sure could go for a bag of jussipussi right now. |:^9

18

When I went to France on Classical League tour back in 1970 I encvountered the French soda Pschitt http://www.bpmlegal.com/wpschitt.html . Naturally, there was a lot of joking about this. I didn’t see anyone actually drink any of it. They still make it, of course.

I realize that was supposed to be about American names that seem risque to non-English speakers, but I couldn’t resist.

(I’d drink a bottle of something called “Bite the Wax Tadpole” in a minute, though.)

19

For English language place names that might get laughs in other languages, there’s always the Grand Teton mountains. “Teton” is French slang for “breasts.”

20

While on a ferry going to Victoria BC many years ago, the name Strait of Juan de Fuca had a group of Japanese school girls in stitches for quite a while. One of the older Japanese women in the group seemed truly embarrassed to even say the name. I don’t know if the name translated to Japanese was funny or if Fuca is close enough to to the f word that they thought they were cussing up a storm in English.