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"The We Company": somebody didn't check what that sounds like when spoken in British English. Wait, what? A company that manufactures and or sells wee?!?? (Pee,
by bartread 8y ago
"The We Company": somebody didn't check what that sounds like when spoken in British English. Wait, what? A company that manufactures and or sells wee?!?? (Pee, to our American friends.) It's not as extreme as powergenitalia or expertsexchange but still something of a facepalm.
- happycube 8y agoNintendo got away with it...
- JohnFen 8y ago> Pee, to our American friends "Wee" also means "pee" in the US, as well as meaning "small".
- barbecue_sauce 8y agoOnly in the context of being a Britishism that Americans occasionally use.
- Dylan16807 8y ago> Only Nope. Never in my life heard of it being a britishism. Edit: A downvote for proving an absolute statement wrong? "Bloody" is used as a britishism. "Wee" is not, at least in many areas.
- blacksmith_tb 8y agoNot in the urine sense, but as in "a wee problem" it's got strong British (mostly Scots, really) overtones for me.
- Dylan16807 8y agoYes, I've seen that use.
- jamisteven 8y agoHave lived all over the US, "wee" is most definitely used.
- Dylan16807 8y agoAs a Britishism? I didn't say it wasn't used at all.
- yellowbuilding 8y agoWhen people use it, they probably won’t add “that was a britishism I just used”. You interpret that through... eh, cultural analysis.
- JohnFen 8y agoI guess, if you squint just right -- but only in the same sense that it's true of most American English. Those uses of "wee" (particularly the "urine" meaning) have been common in the US for far longer than I've been alive. Nobody thinks of them as "britishisms".
- sdinsn 8y agoAmericans use "wee" too
- kevin_thibedeau 8y agoSounds like it's now a Weak Company.
- maxxxxx 8y agoI have looked at "expertsexchange" for years and never saw the humor there. Thanks for pointing out!
- ezoe 8y agoIt happens all the time. Apple's Siri means Ass in Japanese.
- greglindahl 8y agoOr you can recall the snickering when the iPad was introduced. Didn't seem to have negatively affected it.
- austinpray 8y agoI brought this up with my Japanese friend. He told me there are so many homophones in the language people are desensitised to stuff like this. For example: シ (shi) can mean both 四 (four) and 死 (death).
- SllX 8y agoYou’re not wrong, but your choice of examples isn’t great. Four is actually associated with death because it sounds like death, four is unlucky[4]. There is also an alternative pronunciation for “four”, よん。 [4] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetraphobia https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetraphobia
- bigtunacan 8y agoIt’s not commonly used that way, but does have the same meaning in American English as well.
- fargo 8y agoMitsubishi Pajero is even worse
- paranoidrobot 8y agoThe joke being that the name fits the drivers. (By way of explanation, 'pajero' roughly means 'wanker' in Spanish)
- jzl 8y agoAnd don't forget ViaGrafix.com
- adrianratnapala 8y agoThey presumably did think about what it sounded like. And they presumably also noticed that it worked for Nintendo.