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WordSafety: Check a name for unwanted meanings in foreign languages
- rexreed 6y agoCheck these comments from the earlier post from 2015: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10117297 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10117297
- rogerdickey 6y agoWho else immediately plugged in "nova"?
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- haneefmubarak 6y agoWhat's the context I'm missing here?
- valleyer 6y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chevrolet_Chevy_II_/_Nova#Urban_legend https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chevrolet_Chevy_II_/_Nova#Urba...
- sitkack 6y agoIn on language it means, "big explosion" In another it means, "no go" In all languages it means, "smells like gasoline"
- pwinnski 6y agoThere's a popular legend about Chevy's Nova selling poorly in Spanish-speaking countries, since "va" means "go," so "nova" is literally "no-go."
- realusername 6y agoThere's a similar story in France for the Audi e-tron, when pronounced, the name just means kind-of "shitty". That did not help sales for sure...
- bobbean 6y agoI apologise if this is off topic, but I swear 5 minutes ago in the shower I was wondering what company made that car. Thanks for saving me the search.
- boring_twenties 6y agoNot a native Spanish speaker, so I'm prepared to be wrong here, but I would translate "no va" as "doesn't go." Which is even worse
- hombre_fatal 6y agoI confidently assert that not a single English speaker would think something literally wouldn't work because it was called Cantrun or Nogo. Which aren't even good examples because "nova" isn't a novel word to Spanish-speakers. Snopes has a decent explanation. https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/chevrolet-nova-name-spanish/ https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/chevrolet-nova-name-spanis...
- 8organicbits 6y agoNo results for git[1], although I suppose English may not be considered a foreign language. 1. https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/git https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/git
- nilram 6y agoI entered the noun form of a common English obscenity and it caught it.
- peacefulhat 6y agoGives a lot of false positives for words that don't match at all. "aka" -> cha no.
- lucb1e 6y agoI have yet to find a word that gives a long list of false-positives, though. If you get any false-positives, it's usually not more than 2 or maybe 3. If you have a couple potential brand/product names in mind, looking through those hits and using your own judgement isn't a big deal. I'd rather it remains like this, false-positive, than having it false-negative on something bad.
- aijony 6y agoI think this is a great idea for people for people wanting to respect other's sensitivity. However, I also think that it is even more important for people to respect other languages/cultures by not attributing their own independent negative connotations. For example when it comes to naming a project, a Swede shouldn't get offended by an English-speaker using "fan" (Swedish swear for devil), and an English speaker shouldn't get offended by a Swede using "slut" (Swedish root for stop/end). Maybe I'm wrong, but this is a neat service nonetheless.
- arkitaip 6y agoThe corporation that just invested in a 100M global re-branding will for sure want to make sure their branding isn't obviously offensive in a certain market. It's a basic service that branding agencies offer. This could be an useful tool for those efforts.
- balladeer 6y agoSince you mentioned Sweden Sweden's Lund University admin snaps after being trolled by Indians on Facebook - https://www.freepressjournal.in/world/swedens-lund-university-admin-snaps-after-being-trolled-by-indians-on-facebook https://www.freepressjournal.in/world/swedens-lund-universit...
- StavrosK 6y agoI wasn't aware of the meaning of "snaps" as "asks people politely to refrain from harassment".
- balladeer 6y agoSo an admin at a university (probably a person who should be sensitive to PR) should have said "You #$&*^$ #^#%&%$#$@, stop doing this already!" to make it look like a true "snap"?
- StavrosK 6y agoYes, he'd have to do something very uncharacteristic of the position, otherwise it's an entirely appropriate and reasonable reaction, which isn't really what one would characterize a "snap".
- AmericanChopper 6y agoI’m not sure what it’s referring to when it says ‘Malay’ (that could mean a few different things) but it’s definitely missing some Malay words. Edit: I think it’s referring to Malaysian/Malayu but it doesn’t pick up a lot of the Malaysian cuss words that I tested on it (like the F word...)
- grawprog 6y agoHow does this work with words or phrases that have two different meanings in different languages, offensive in one but a common phrase or something in another? A friend of mine from the Philippines speaks Cebuano and Olango, two different visaya dialects, they can mostly understand eachother, but there's phrases or words in each dialect that translates to offensive things in the other dialect, apparently this is a common source of confusion between speakers of only one of the two languages with a speaker of the opposite dialect.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- axaxs 6y agoThis is a cool idea, just needs a bit of tweaking. For example, 'bubs' is flagged as a partial match of 'boob'. 'bewbs' finds no such match and is deemed safe.
- benatkin 6y agoOne of my favorites: syntax (english) -> sintaxis (spanish) -> sin taxis (english) I think most of these are occasionally amusing but not problematic. I've been living in Miami and I find that different words in different languages sharing the same spelling are as irrelevant as word meanings changing by adding only one letter. If I were to reply when someone said "Do you like my hat?" with "Hmm, I dunno, if I add an e to that it will spell 'hate'", that would be ridiculous and annoying. Similar with interpreting one language as another.
- DoreenMichele 6y agoThis is probably most useful for people who speak English as a second language trying to name something in English because it's de facto our current lingua franca and gets called globish for that reason. I've given people on HN feedback a few times about how "that doesn't mean what you think it means and sounds to me like a terrible name for this project and here's why." A website checking for things like this is maybe a reasonable first step for some people, but if you aren't somewhat fluent in the culture and language of your primary target audience, a website like this is likely insufficient. You should get some "live" feedback as well if you aren't sure, preferably from someone like me who is prone to being too truthful to be good. People with better "manners" may not tell you honestly "Ha! That sounds like (offensive as all hell phrase) to me!"
- rogerdickey 6y agoDoesn't look like it covers 那个 (pronounced nah-gu in Mandarin). I had a black friend in college who told me about how deeply offended he was when he heard his Chinese girlfriend's parents saying this over & over...
- amrx101 6y agoGood one. I will always remember the name of the then US first lady. Laura Bush. Laura in my native language means Penis.
- pyuser583 6y agoWhat language is that? It’s a really common English name.
- dilap 6y agoFunnily enough, Dick is a common short form of Richard!
- boring_twenties 6y agoAnd Bush in American slang means pubic hair!
- dgb23 6y agoPeace among worlds!
- dzink 6y agoGreat idea! However the list is not yet complete, so not to be trusted completely. The words “Gus/Guz” and “Zadnik” have negative meanings in Bulgarian, but don’t seem to show. If you enable crowdsourced additions to the dictionary, you may complete the list fairly quickly.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- est 6y agoDidn't work when adding a space between syllables.
- G4E 6y agoOne of my favorite example of this kind of oversight is the audi "e-tron" : in french, an "étron" is literally a turd... (it seems that this website doesn't catch it yet though)
- aga98mtl 6y agoI tried the classic blunder "Buick Lacrosse" which sounds exactly like "Buick the Scam" in Québécois. This tool does not understand Québécois.
- DonHopkins 6y agoBuick's a pretty disgusting onomatopoeia in and of itself. As in "Ordering Buicks over the big white porcelain telephone".
- Abishek_Muthian 6y agoAlthough I've been recommending WordSafety tool for quite a while now[1] for 'cultural-linguistic check' when naming a startup/product, we need to consider other factors as well like current events. Of course, it wouldn't be wise to name our product 'Corona' now(probably ever?); Let me give you another epidemic related example - "Tata Motors, an automobile company which owns Jaguar, Land Rover were about to release their much anticipated car in 2016 called ‘Zica’ just when Zika virus epidemic struck the world; Tata motors promptly rebranded their car to Tiago before release." [2] [1]https://startuptoolchain.com/#incorporation https://startuptoolchain.com/#incorporation [2]https://hitstartup.com/how-to-name-our-startup/ https://hitstartup.com/how-to-name-our-startup/
- EdwardDiego 6y agoPlenty of Toyota Isis' driving around my country.
- Abishek_Muthian 6y agoDepending upon the country, it could be either favourable or unfavourable as a 'brand name'!
- miki123211 6y agoAlso ISIS audiobooks, a genuine audiobook publishing company (not sure if they still exist). They were the ones behind a few audiobooks in the discworld series. I actually got that name in a Windows notification once, of course, when people were looking at my screen. That was a lot of explaining.
- liversage 6y agoThere is a Danish company that specializes in sugar free products that was named Isis. Initially they sold ice cream or in Danish 'is' hence the name. After 23 years they changed their name to Easis quoting problems with building new customer relations especially abroad. Name change announcement (in Danish): https://www.easis.dk/isis-er-lagt-paa-hylden https://www.easis.dk/isis-er-lagt-paa-hylden
- pajtai 6y agoNot as good as Google... At least as regards Hungarian (e.g. fasz). Google is generally okay for this, so not sure I understand the selling point.
- buzzy_hacker 6y agoI put in “Nova” first since that’s the best instance of this problem I know, only to learn that it’s an urban legend!
- bencollier49 6y agoThis is potentially dangerous, as it gives a false sense of security. It appears to completely ignore slang. I just plugged in "slapper" and got a green light, for instance. I notice they have a cautionary note on the site, so...? My favourite story about this sort of thing relates to a computer game which was very popular in its home territory (the UK) but struggled when released abroad (Germany, I think?) as its name was a slang term for "rent boy". IIRC this was the game "Midwinter".
- Godel_unicode 6y agoThis site, as with so many that work on this problem, totally fails at American slang (basically anything from twitch chat). This is what one of my former jobs called the middle schooler test. Find a colleague with a 12 year old, and give them a folder with the name in big letters on the front to leave on the kitchen table. You'll find out the next day if the name's safe.
- golemiprague 6y agoNot only American, tried some swear words in Arabic, very basic stuff and it couldn't find it. I think maybe it just looks in regular dictionary for a list of "bad" words.
- legerdemain 6y agoOK, let's try this: mokkori -> safe! Uh... hmm... mukkuri -> danger! Matched "kur," which according to the site is "Russian: penis (Bulgarian)." Not sure if the site is claiming that it's the Russian word for Bulgarian penis or what.
- Krasnol 6y agoIt worked quite well on "Kurve" (German for "curve"). Made us chuckle as youths coming from Poland. However the problem often is that you don't know which word to look up in the first place. The possibility to paste a whole text and have it look for "problematic words" would be more useful.
- QuiXotical1 6y agoI think it’s crowd sourced answers with our help. Looked up a common one and it wasn’t there. Added it to help, of course
- bjornstar 6y agoI put in my favorite poorly conceived product name: chocolate stool It warned me that it contained the words 'ho' and 'chola'. Not really the result I expected.
- woko 6y agoAs a non-native speaker, this website is useful to learn English slang.
- newman8r 6y agoDarn, my current project starts with "ass" in bengali and "butt" in German oh well
- rahulchowdhury 6y agoIt supports Hindi words as well. Great stuff.
- cookie_monsta 6y agoI really feel like Mitsubishi should have checked here before releasing the Pajero
- camillomiller 6y ago>“Arshole” 1 Result: >“ho”, English: prostitute. >Match inside word, may not be a problem. Cool, I’ll go with that for my next website.
- lebaux 6y agoI can swear in 4 languages and it was all missing. And there is no option to submit a pull request. This would work much beetter as open source project.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- rubidium 6y agoThen make your own! And get off the lawn. Sheesh.
- tveyben 6y agoHow about Numbers? Did’nt Apple have a low sales rate of the Performa 4400 in Japan due to 4 having a bad meaning? Four is an unlucky number in Japan because it sounds like shi (死 – death). This is why there are two readings for the number four, shi and yon. Whenever possible, people try to avoid using the deathy one. https://www.lingualift.com/blog/lucky-unlucky-numbers-japan/ https://www.lingualift.com/blog/lucky-unlucky-numbers-japan/
- DoingIsLearning 6y agoWe can also add in alphanumeric sequences. An example of this was Toyota launching the 'MR2' in France, which phonetically spells out something not very marketable.
- 100111010110 6y agoGreat service. Interesting finds. hacker “kher” Russian: dick
- mola 6y agoWix.com has this problem in Germany, I think they handled it rather gracefully: https://youtu.be/IddnMutPgTI https://youtu.be/IddnMutPgTI IMHO A society that can handle sensitivities with good hearted humor is more robust and inclusive than other alternatives.
- gnachman 6y agoI was recently involved in an unwanted meaning issue where my app icon looked like "SB", which I learned is offensive to some Chinese speakers. Too bad it doesn't come up in wordsafety.com. Not that I'd have thought to look…
- jonplackett 6y agoGreat idea. I’ve heard 2 funny examples of this from Spanish friends. Apparently ford released a car in Spain a while back that sounded like ‘wanker’ in Spanish. Something like Panjero - maybe someone else can remember precisely. And also Nescafe sounds a lot like No es Cafe (not coffee)
- probably_wrong 6y agoThe car is the Mitsubishi Pajero, renamed to "Montero" in Spanish-speaking countries.
- jonplackett 6y agoThanks for the corrections!
- pavlov 6y agoFunny seeing this site here again! I made WordSafety five years ago as a two-night quickie side project: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10117297 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10117297 It is sadly neglected by me since then. Fortunately the code is extremely simple so it just runs with zero maintenance. Actually I'd love to hand this site over to someone who would take better care of it than me. If that's you, drop me an email or Twitter DM (details in my HN bio).
- fahrradflucht 6y agoI was about to complain about the lack of https. But for a five year old side-project you may be forgiven :wink:.
- namelosw 6y agoNice service, it's would be pertty useful when it can identify this kind of issues before it's too late. One of the most used word in Mandarin is '那个' which means 'that' and 'Um...', and it sounds like the N-word. Another frequently used word is '会', which means both 'is able to' or 'is going to', and it sounds like 'хуй' which means penis. I heard some Russian chuckles when we say this word, though I found that funny too when I realized.
- l4hel 6y agoDid a few attempts using slang of European languages. Lacks words that are widely understood by the general population and have bad meanings.
- k_sze 6y agoNice idea. But doesn't seem very robust. I searched for "fallus" and it gave me a nonsensical answer instead of the "phallus" that I expected.
- dcanelhas 6y ago"Knull is coming"
- TazeTSchnitzel 6y agoI typed in a former internal codename from my employer that I know was replaced because of an obvious unfortunate meaning in Chinese, and WordSafety said nothing.
- Daub 6y ago'sweat' remains a popular drinks brand despite such concerns.
- aitchnyu 6y agoWe used to have Appy which means shit in Kerala, India. Somehow a TV campaign made us say App-ee instead of the bad upp-e and its popular since then.
- mfontani 6y agoDoesn't seem to pick up on "Cognos" being similar to "coño", but it did pick up on the famous example of the "Ascona" car.
- lloydatkinson 6y agoI just typed Sex and it said it’s fine... I don’t think the site is very good
- DarthGhandi 6y agoIn which culture is sex a bad thing?
- dgellow 6y agoMaybe Amish? But they are really unlikely to buy your products!
- lloydatkinson 6y agoI didn’t say it was? But I’m pretty sure it makes the site useless
- Closi 6y agoPhew, I can be safe knowing that my lifestyle brand “smelly toilet mess Isis untrustworthy company” does not have any negative meaning in English.
- Leherenn 6y agoA somewhat funny story happened at a company I used to work. Due to legal concerns, a product had to be renamed and the sales and marketing team spent weeks looking for a new name. Those teams were basically entirely native English speakers in a non English speaking country. Despite having lived there for a few years, none of them had more than a basic proficiency in the local language. Anyway, they sent a company wide email, proudly announcing the new name, and asking if anyone saw any issue with it. It happened to be a pretty embarrassing word in the local language, which everyone had on their mind, but no one dared say anything, until the big mouth in the company just sent the item in question as a picture to every one in the company. A different name was promptly announced.
- dgellow 6y agoWhat was the name, and what country? if you can share
- tgsovlerkhgsel 6y agoI hope the company appropriately recognized the value of the big mouth, instead of chastising him for his form while tolerating all the other people who knew but chose to say nothing.
- Hard_Space 6y agoFailed to identify the Italian word 'scopa' - which means 'broom', but also something very NSFW. It did recognize 'Sega' as an Italian term for a bout of self-abuse. However, that ship sailed a long time ago.
- lucb1e 6y agoNote that HTML is not escaped correctly. I don't think this can lead to XSS because <> is removed and the word is not echoed inside any tag attribute, but escaping &, ', and " might be something to fix regardless. Obligatory snowman: https://dro.pm/a.png https://dro.pm/a.png
- mprovost 6y agoApparently "G8" when pronounced in Chinese sounds like slang for "penis". [0] Canon had a popular line of cameras named G1/G2 etc - they skipped from G7 to G9. [1] HP also had servers with model names and generations that were also abbreviated as Gx, so HP ProLiant DL380p G7. They changed their naming convention to Genx when the 8th generation came up, so Gen8 instead of G8. (Fun side story - apparently HP names their servers this way for government procurement contracts. So the contract can be written specifying a "HP DL380p server" and HP can supply whatever the latest generation is. Even if it shares nothing in common with the previous generation other than a name.) [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mandarin_Chinese_profanity#Penis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mandarin_Chinese_profanity#Pen... [1] https://www.dpreview.com/forums/thread/2448027 https://www.dpreview.com/forums/thread/2448027 [2] http://up2v.nl/2012/08/10/wonder-why-hp-did-use-gen8-instead-of-g8-for-its-8th-generation-of-servers/ http://up2v.nl/2012/08/10/wonder-why-hp-did-use-gen8-instead...
- DonHopkins 6y agoAnd also the iPhone 7's slogan "This is 7" means "This is penis" in Hong Kong. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPhone_7#Perception_of_slogan_in_Cantonese-speaking_regions https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPhone_7#Perception_of_slogan_... >The iPhone 7's "This is 7" slogan has been misunderstood when translated to certain other languages. The phone's slogan in Mainland China is "7, is here;" (Chinese: 7，在此; pinyin: 7, zài cǐ), while in Hong Kong, its slogan is, "This, is iPhone 7;" (Chinese: 這，就是iPhone 7; Jyutping: ze5, zau6 si6 iPhone 7). >In Cantonese, the local language of Hong Kong, the slogan could be mistakenly interpreted as "This is penis". "Tsat", (Chinese: 杘; Jyutping: cat6), is a common slang term for an erect penis, and "seven", (Chinese: 七; Jyutping: cat1), which varies only in tone, is often used as a euphemism.
- timkam 6y agoMarvel's "Knull" is a fun example that the website is actually "catching": https://www.svt.se/kultur/starka-reaktioner-pa-nya-marvelskurken https://www.svt.se/kultur/starka-reaktioner-pa-nya-marvelsku... See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knull_(comics)#Reception https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knull_(comics)#Reception
- 2038AD 6y agoInteresting "china" is flagged but "pen island" is not
- IfOnlyYouKnew 6y agoThe best names, of course, do tend to evoke complex emotions. 'Virgin', and 'Plan B' are the classic example in the branding industry. CockroachDB is my favorite in tech, and also my favorite example of how tech people and their faux rationality are useless for tasks involving creativity and imagination.
- homarp 6y agotoo nad it doesn't do phonetics. it could catch hank ewlay shu pameyla and funnily Felicity Shagwell is only flagged for 'lik'
- f4rt_blossm 6y agoDoesn't work for Thai at all. I tried the top 10 offensive words and their most common Romanizations.
- Igelau 6y agoThis reminds me of an incident from my teen years. I was at a party that had a bunch of German exchange students, and at one point we found them laughing around a bottle of Sierra Mist (Pepsi's Sprite-alike). Turns out "mist" doesn't sound very refreshing in German :)
- huffmsa 6y agoSadly no Easter egg for "bitenuker" (bêteneuker) Caused GE to lose the European market for their pocket microwave back in 2009.
- DonHopkins 6y agoAlways check for unwanted anagrams, too. Hacker News = Wankers Ech, Whack Sneer, Cranks Whee, Shaken Crew, Neck Washer, Wench Rakes, Eschew Rank, Hawk Screen, Swank Cheer, Her New Sack, He Necks War, Answer Heck, Warns Cheek, Ashen Wreck ... https://new.wordsmith.org/anagram/anagram.cgi?anagram=hacker+news&language=english-obscure&t=0&d=&include=&exclude=&n=&m=&a=n&l=n&q=n&k=1&source=adv https://new.wordsmith.org/anagram/anagram.cgi?anagram=hacker...
- hellofunk 6y agoLooks to be missing quite a lot of offensive content from the searches I tried, things that bit me in the past.
- gsich 6y agoMongodb comes to mind. "mongo" is a slur in german for handicapped (mostly down syndrome) people.
- sercankd 6y agoI think this tool only working for popular languages like european and some asian languages. None of the middle eastern languages are checked at all.
- anonu 6y ago"kiss" is there for Arabic.... What other words can you think of
- anonu 6y agoDon't do the French cheers "chin chin" in Japan... You'll get some laughs. The site gets it right. Also kiss in Arabic is quite bad