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Facebook's new name ridiculed by Hebrew speakers
- rsyring 5y agoSummary: Meta sounds like the Hebrew word for "dead."
- throwawaymanbot 5y agoWhich is what Facebook and their products, regardless of name change, are to a lot of people. So it’s very fitting.
- scruffyherder 5y agoSurprisingly meta
- pipeline_peak 5y agoThere are so many far worse foreign translations. I don’t think “ The Jewish community will ridicule this name for years to come.”. Average people don’t care about parent company names. Do you realize how many people don’t know what Alphabet is?
- ksaj 5y agoEspecially since it's only a sound-alike homonym. They're as likely to make it an enduring joke as English speakers hearing duty would laugh at its similarity to doodie (poop). It just doesn't occur to most people unless they are using it as a synonym when taking the dogs out.
- pipeline_peak 5y agoIt's also a well known, well used word from Greek origin.
- Shuang1 5y agoIt's an American company and Meta is an English term so I don't see how that's relevant to anything. I hate Facebook just as much as anyone else but this story is a nothing burger.
- marcolussetti 5y agoI think Meta here is a ancient Greek term honestly, though it is in use in English as well.
- rchaves 5y agoWell in Portuguese it means “fuck”, I think it’s very suitable
- csouza-f 5y agoWell, I don't think anyone pronouncing this in Portuguese will pronounce this in the way "fuck" would be a word. At least in Brazilian Portuguese, the pronounce is in the same way in English.
- ksaj 5y agoAccording to Google Translate it can mean "consummate" which technically could be the same as "fuck" except without being slang or negative.
- jakub_g 5y agoIn Polish there are two meanings of 'meta': 1) finish line (e.g. of a marathon) 2) a place where you can buy illegal vodka, cigarettes etc. :)
- freebee87 5y agoBecause Hebrew is gendered Meta (מתה) technically is "she is dead". However that transcription is incorrect and arguably (מטא) is the right one. Those phonics are actually quite common in Hebrew. Similar sounding מטע (Plantation) מטה (Down) מתא(From Cell), מתע (misleading/tricky) could also have been used.
- bradknowles 5y agoI think that last one looks pretty appropriate, considering the subject matter.
- euroderf 5y agoThis other meaning was also true when Emacs defined names for its keys. So why the hubbub now ?