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Dear all:

Thank you for your interesting conversation. I would like to add a note as
well.

As far as I know, an article named "If the world were 100 people" has been
written in at least two textbooks. You can check the content here.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r6eTr4ldDYg.  It says that only 7 people out
of 100 (7% of total population) have access to the internet.

By December 31, 2011, 32.7% of world population has access to the internet,
according to the following. http://www.internetworldstats.com/stats.htm.

Sincerely,

Mina Lee


On Tue, Jun 19, 2012 at 10:03 AM, Ciravegna, Luciano <
[log in to unmask]> wrote:

>  Dear all
>
> a small note - the Mitsubishi Pajero sells in Spanish speaking countries
> as "Montero", due to the fact that the word "paja" is commonly used to mean
> the act of male masturbation, and hence "pajero" could be interpreted as a
> person who engages in such practice rather often. In this case someone at
> Mitsubishi must have noticed.
>
> Yours,
>
> Dr Luciano Ciravegna
> PhD The London School of Economics
> www.lucianociravegna.com
>   ------------------------------
> *From:* Romie Littrell [[log in to unmask]]
> *Sent:* 16 June 2012 01:51
>
> *To:* [log in to unmask]
> *Subject:* Re: [AIB-L] FW: [AIB-L] Perpetuating falsehoods: The Chevrolet
> Nova sold poorly in Spanish-speaking countries because its name translates
> as "doesn't go" in Spanish
>
>    Tunga is correct. The Ford Pinto was never sold in Brasil, even under
> another model name. Marcelo de Castro Bastos informs (and confirmed
> elsewhere): The Ford Corcel was a totally unrelated product, the result of
> a joint project by the Brazilian subsidiary of Willys Overland and French
> automaker Renault (Willys used to make Renault cars, like the Dauphine and
> Gordini, under license in Brazil.) When Ford acquired Willys's Brazilian
> operation, they inherited the almost-finished project and decided to launch
> it under their own brand. They MAY have considered to use the "Pinto" brand
> on it, but saner heads prevailed and decided on the "Corcel" name in order
> to keep to the "horse" theme Ford seemed to like at the time. The "Pinto"
> name was never used in Brazil.
>
> This site has a random collection of communication on these topics:
> http://www.i18nguy.com/translations.html
>
> Romie Frederick Littrell, BA, MBA, PhD, FIAIR
> Auckland University of Technology, New Zealand
> IV. 1st stanza, War is Kind and Other Lines, Stephen Crane, 1899
> A little ink more or less!
> It surely can't matter?
> Even the sky and the opulent sea,
> The plains and the hills, aloof,
> Hear the uproar of all these books.
> But it is only a little ink more or less.
>
> --- On *Sat, 16/6/12, Kiyak, Tunga <[log in to unmask]>* wrote:
>
>
> From: Kiyak, Tunga <[log in to unmask]>
> Subject: Re: [AIB-L] FW: [AIB-L] Perpetuating falsehoods: The Chevrolet
> Nova sold poorly in Spanish-speaking countries because its name translates
> as "doesn't go" in Spanish
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Received: Saturday, 16 June, 2012, 10:32 AM
>
>   That’s most likely an urban legend as well.  The claim is that Ford
> Pinto was renamed and sold as Ford Corcel after the blunder was noticed.
> The problem with that is that Corcel was actually introduced in Brazil in
> 1968 (and developed in Brazil by a company that was later acquired by
> Ford).  That’s 2 years BEFORE Ford Pinto was ever marketed (it was
> introduced in the US in 1970).
>
>
>
> Doing some quick Googling, there is some brief research about the Ford
> Pinto claim at http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=619 and it reaches
> the same conclusion…
>
>
>
> Tunga
>
>
>
>
>
> *From:* Ghoshal, Animesh [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
> *Sent:* Friday, June 15, 2012 18:10
> *To:* Kiyak, Tunga; [log in to unmask]
> *Subject:* RE: [AIB-L] FW: [AIB-L] Perpetuating falsehoods: The Chevrolet
> Nova sold poorly in Spanish-speaking countries because its name translates
> as "doesn't go" in Spanish
>
>
>
> Thank you, Romie and Tunga, for alerting us to the possibility that some
> of the “facts” used textbook discussions of the cultural aspects of
> international business are not quite factual.
>
>
>
> I wonder if anyone has investigated the claim that the Ford Pinto had to
> be renamed in Brazil after Ford realized that in Portuguese slang pinto is
> a small male appendage. Is this also an urban legend?
>
>
>
> Animesh Ghoshal
>
>
>
> *From:* Kiyak, Tunga [mailto:[log in to unmask]]<http://UrlBlockedError.aspx>
> *Sent:* Friday, June 15, 2012 4:08 PM
> *To:* [log in to unmask] <http://UrlBlockedError.aspx>
> *Subject:* Re: [AIB-L] FW: [AIB-L] Perpetuating falsehoods: The Chevrolet
> Nova sold poorly in Spanish-speaking countries because its name translates
> as "doesn't go" in Spanish
>
>
>
> I number of us had engaged in a similar discussion back in May 2002 on
> Global Interact Network (GINLIST – a now defunct discussion list).  There
> were several translation examples that we discussed as urban legends; the
> Chevy Nova example, the Coca-Cola being translated into Chinese as "bite
> the wax tadpole", and Pepsi’s campaign in Taiwan being translated as "Pepsi
> will bring your ancestors back from the dead" as well as others.
>
>
>
> A few of us tried to track the citations in the textbooks to their
> original sources and quickly went nowhere. At the end, we found several
> books that simply cited each other or mentioning these cases as anecdotes
> without any credible references. The earliest mention of the Chevy Nova
> ‘blunder’ we could find was a WSJ article from January 13, 1977 written by
> a staff reporter discussing the business of technical translation.  The
> conclusion of the discussion was that these are all urban legends that have
> been victims of ‘consensual validation’. Once a first few cites came up,
> lazy writers who only do cursory research use those citations as validation
> of the statement as a fact and publish them.  Additional such publications
> only strengthen the false validation process.
>
>
>
> What’s so surprising is that the Snopes article was already up online in
> 2002, so the case has been researched and classified as urban legend for at
> least a decade.  Yet it continues to be mentioned frequently as a brand
> blunder.
>
>
>
> Tunga
>
> --
>
> Tunga Kiyak, Ph.D.
>
> Managing Director
>
> Academy of International Business (AIB)
>
>
>
> *From:* Blanco, R Ivan [mailto:[log in to unmask]]<http://UrlBlockedError.aspx>
> *Sent:* Friday, June 15, 2012 15:47
> *To:* [log in to unmask] <http://UrlBlockedError.aspx>
> *Subject:* [AIB-L] FW: [AIB-L] Perpetuating falsehoods: The Chevrolet
> Nova sold poorly in Spanish-speaking countries because its name translates
> as "doesn't go" in Spanish
>
>
>
> Romie,
>
>
>
> Finally someone writes about this myth!  I have been saying the same for a
> long time to my students in International Business and Cross-Cultural
> Management because all textbooks use that as an example of blunders in
> language, and the Nova thing became a classic which no one had questioned
> before. I lived in Venezuela during the introduction of the Chevy Nova and
> it was a very well accepted car in that market as mentioned in your e-mail.
> I have said to my students and to anyone else willing to listen that in
> Spanish speaking countries “nova” will be associated more with the word
> “nuevo” (which means new), because the Latin root of “Nuevo” is pretty
> close to “Nova.”
>
>
>
> Thanks for sharing!
>
>
>
> Ivan Blanco
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> *From:* Romie Littrell [mailto:[log in to unmask]]<http://UrlBlockedError.aspx>
> *Sent:* Thursday, June 14, 2012 3:35 PM
> *To:* [log in to unmask] <http://UrlBlockedError.aspx>
> *Subject:* [AIB-L] Perpetuating falsehoods: The Chevrolet Nova sold
> poorly in Spanish-speaking countries because its name translates as
> "doesn't go" in Spanish
>
>
>
> *A False Claim:*   The Chevrolet Nova sold poorly in Spanish-speaking
> countries because its name translates as "doesn't go" in Spanish.
>
> Summarised from: www.snopes.com, Urban Legends Reference Pages ©
> 1995-2012 by Barbara and David P. Mikkelson.
>
> I’m still seeing publications and comments with the incorrect and
> misleading legend of “The Chevrolet Nova sold poorly in Spanish-speaking
> countries because its name translates as "doesn't go" in Spanish. I become
> increasingly concerned about the diligence and responsibility of authors of
> textbooks and articles. As snopes.com points out, the ‘Chevy Nova legend
> lives on in countless marketing textbooks, is repeated in numerous business
> seminars, and is a staple of newspaper and magazine columnists who need a
> pithy example of human folly. Perhaps someday this apocryphal tale will
> become what it should be: an illustration of how easily even "experts" can
> sometimes fall victim to the very same dangers they warn us about.’
>
> Part of the fiction is that GM executives were baffled until someone
> finally pointed out to them that "nova" translates as "doesn't go" in
> Spanish. The embarrassed automobile giant changed the model name to the
> Caribe, and sales of the car took off. Actually Caribe is a Volkwagen
> model, not a Chevy. The truth is that the Chevrolet Nova's name didn't
> significantly affect its sales: it sold well in both its major
> Spanish-language markets, Mexico and Venezuela. (Its Venezuelan sales
> figures actually surpassed GM's expectations.)
>
> From snopes.com: The original Chevrolet Nova (initially the Chevy II) hit
> the U.S. market in 1962. (This car should not be confused with the smaller,
> front wheel drive vehicle which was produced in 1985 as a joint venture
> between General Motors and Toyota and also assigned the Nova name.) Between
> 1972 and 1978 the Chevrolet Nova was also sold in Mexico and several other
> Spanish-speaking countries, primarily Venezuela. Shortly afterwards the
> great "Nova" legend arose, a legend which a little linguistic analysis
> shows it to be improbable:
>
> First of all, the phrase "no va" (literally "doesn't go") and the word
> "nova" are distinct entities with different pronunciations in Spanish: the
> former is two words and is pronounced with the accent on the second word;
> the latter is one word with the accent on the first syllable. Assuming that
> Spanish speakers would naturally see the word "nova" as equivalent to the
> phrase "no va" and think "Hey, this car doesn't go!" is akin to assuming
> that English speakers would spurn a dinette set sold under the name *
> Notable* because nobody wants a dinette set that doesn't include a table.
>
> Although "no va" can be literally translated as "no go," it would be a
> curious locution for a speaker of Spanish to use in reference to a car.
> Just as an English speaker would describe a broken-down car by saying that
> it "doesn't run" rather than it "doesn't go," so a Spanish speaker would
> refer to a malfunctioning automobile by saying "no marcha" or "no funciona"
> or "no camina" rather than "no va."
>
> Pemex (the Mexican government-owned oil monopoly) sold (and still sells)
> gasoline in Mexico under the name "Nova." If Mexicans were going to
> associate anything with the Chevrolet Nova based on its name, it would
> probably be this gasoline. In any case, if Mexicans had no compunctions
> about filling the tanks of their cars with a type of gasoline whose name
> advertised that it "didn't go," why would they reject a similarly-named
> automobile?
>
> This legend assumes that a handful of General Motors executives launched a
> car into a foreign market and remained in blissful ignorance about a
> possible adverse translation of its name. Even if nobody in Detroit knew
> enough rudimentary Spanish to notice the coincidence, the Nova could not
> have been brought to market in Mexico and/or South America without the
> involvement of numerous Spanish speakers engaged to translate user manuals,
> prepare advertising and promotional materials, communicate with the network
> of Chevrolet dealers in the target countries, etc. In fact, GM was aware of
> the translation and opted to retain the model name "Nova" in
> Spanish-speaking markets anyway, because they (correctly) felt the matter
> to be unimportant.
> *
> Additional information from snopes.com:
> *http://www.novaresource.org/history.htm
> Debunking several urban legends: Ricks, David A.   *Blunders in
> International Business<http://www.snopes.com/sources/business/blunders.htm>
> *. Cambridge, U.S.A.: Blackwell, 1993.   ISBN 1-55786-414-4   (p. 35).
>
> Romie Frederick Littrell, BA, MBA, PhD, FIAIR
> Auckland University of Technology, New Zealand
> IV. 1st stanza, War is Kind and Other Lines, Stephen Crane, 1899
> A little ink more or less!
> It surely can't matter?
> Even the sky and the opulent sea,
> The plains and the hills, aloof,
> Hear the uproar of all these books.
> But it is only a little ink more or less.
>
> ____
> AIB-L is brought to you by the Academy of International Business.
> For information: http://aib.msu.edu/community/aib-l.asp
> To post message: [log in to unmask] <http://UrlBlockedError.aspx>
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>
>   ____
> AIB-L is brought to you by the Academy of International Business.
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