December 4, 2011
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Vodafone, making an entire country giggle like schoolgirls since 1984
Ya’know how certain things sound perfectly normal in one language, but bizarre, inappropriate or even downright vulgar in another…?
A phone company offering VOice and DAta services through their phone services can do worse than calling it Vodafone.
Unless you happen to be from Bangladesh. Folks from Bangladesh that were traveling abroad found a certain mixture of shock & amusement when they came across promotional material for Vodafone during their travels in the 80′s.
The middle class population in Bangladesh got a piece of the the shock & amusement pie, when promotional material for Vodafone started showing up in Indian movies & TV programs, around the turn of the millennium.
Sometime around 2010 (give or take a year or two, since the exact year escapes me), Vodafone decided to start operations in Bangladesh.
Under the brand name of Vodafone.
With the aforementioned promotional material for Vodafone being distributed on a nationwide level, and bringing a much needed relief to those in dire need of a very specific combination of shock & amusement.
And the occasional awkward pause whenever Vodafone came up in a conversation.
By the simple virtue of it’s name alone, what would have otherwise been a simple aspect of a conversation, “I’ve switched over to Company X” had become “I’ve switched over to [awkward pause] Vodafone”.
It’s like a secret everyone knows, but no one wants to do anything about it anyway.
Why?
Because “Fone” and/or “Phone” (the sound of it, anyway) means the exact same thing in English as it does in variants of the Bengali language that is spoken in Bangladesh. “Voda” (the sound of it, anyway) on the other hand, is a derogatory slang for a very specific part of the female anatomy.
Family gatherings can take a turn for the awkward pretty fast.
Comments (37)
Heee hee I can imagine the conversation now, lets call our company vagina phone ok?” ummm “Sounds great to me, it will be a memorable name at any rate.” –
@drawmafreezone - Well it’s not like a European company in the 80′s would care about the meaning of their brand name in a place like Bangladesh.
But yeah… conversations can get pretty weird. Fast.
@Lakakalo - True, however most companies check for word meanings and association in the country they’re branching into and adapt the name for those venues when needed. It’s not too hard to do the research they’re either lazy or just don’t care.
LOL they should have researched cultural background before hahaha I keep picturing the scene in a familiar dinner O.o
@drawmafreezone, @xXxlovelylollipop - I believe it also has to do with some kind of a brand management on a global scale.
That and it’s Bangladesh. A place where one part of the populace still innocently use terms like “Erection” while another part of the populace find them selves in varying degrees of discomfort. A friend of mine used to work in an office located at the top floor of a building named “Erectors Tower”. >_<
I’ve found myself choking on my food after overhearing a couple of burly construction folks talking about exchanging vibrators because someone’s wasn’t working. (For the record, they were discussing industrial strength vibrators used in construction.)
-_-
@Lakakalo - LOL at least it’s entertaining and the brand name will be memorable.
In Croatian, voda means water – so it’s really not as silly as it sounds.
@bmojsilo - I… did not know that. But yeah… you never know how something you think is perfectly normal might sound to someone else.
@Lakakalo - so true
Very interesting.
This is really pretty hilarious…and awkward.
@NCTHope - Awkward hilarity. She is a harsh mistress. Though IMHO the incident that takes the awkwardly hilarious cake has to be one involving my mom’s lack of comprehension of a certain *AHEM* “apparel centric” song. -_-
@Lakakalo - Hahaha love it. Although it would have been more awkward if she really knew what it was about, and still belted it out in the car.
@NCTHope - There in lies the beauty of it. The people involved are all very conservative change-the-channel-if-someone’s-wearing-something-even-slightly-suggestive type of people. Had they known what the song was about, they’d scramble to change the station the moment the intro came on.
Oh NOOO! That probably got all the mullahs get all uptight. That is funny.
Also thought to mention the Russian ‘voda’ but that faucet was already turned on.
So I suggest they acquire a contraceptives firm and market ‘Voda-foam’.
Here in Israel folks buy KIA automobiles. The name means, simply ‘Vomit’. Also the ‘Lancer’, which reads, at least, as “to saw up”
I like how you saved to denouement for the last paragraph..
@ZSA_MD - Strangely enough, they don’t. Then again, they’ve been quite(er) for the last few years.
@jsolberg - Thank you. It’s strangely entertaining watching companies do what they sometimes do in this day and age. As for the denouement, it was originally at the beginning of the post, but then, it felt like there was no need to continue reading further.
@Lakakalo - Yeah, O’Henry’s got the patent on ending with a bang.
I always used to bitch, long before the net, that “A simple phone call and I coulda told ‘em.” These days there is zero excuse, short of global EMP.
As a ham operator on Morse by preference, I especially detest movie bungled imitation ‘morris code’. Only very early Warner’s ever bothered to have it say something real. Oh and once, in a Disney, I copied ‘Hi Walt’
Hope this was on-topic. Yeah, cluelessness.
Ya’know how certain things sound perfectly normal in one language, but bizarre, inappropriate or even downright vulgar in another…?
HAW HAW I knew a few good ones. I might blog it some day.
@jsolberg - One of my little obsession revolves around the art of storytelling. Sometimes, more so than the stories. -_-
Methinks your experience in Morse is what is often referred to as a bilingual bonus. I usually detest the magic-boxes Hollywood keeps insisting are Computers.
@NewDog2 - Heheh… sometimes things don’t even need to be vulgar. The local term for relationship is “affair”. Wrote a blog about it, many, many moons ago.
hahaw!
Good old Xxxfone!
lol sounds like their research and development department needs an overhaul
Ha, this reminds me a little of the story about why the Chevy Nova did so awfully in Spanish-speaking markets. It sounds like “no va,” which means “no go,” which is exactly what you don’t want a car to do. But at least they didn’t name it the vagina car or something like that. Although…that might have boosted sales if they did.
But anyway, yeah, cultural sensitivity is a good idea when you’re a global company, lol.
“Um, is this thing on?” ahahahaha!
Knowing is half the battle.
Vodafone is quite a well known brand. Vadofone sponsored McLaren Formula One team and Manchester United Soccer team once, if I not mistaken.
@RestlessButterfly - Oh Vodafone IS a well known brand. If anything, that might be one of the reasons they decided to stick with the name. It’s just that the local connotations are… somewhat unfortunate.
Yikes.
That happened to my older sister. She had baked a cake for her church. They always have some sort of food thing after mass. So, she was putting up this cake in the counter, and saw a Mexican acquaintance (we’re Puertorrican) and said “do you want a piece of my cake?” All the color flushed away from the guy’s face, and he froze.
Turns out there are several words for cake in the Spanish language. The ones we Puertorricans use is like saying “pussy” in English. So, plug that word in the question above, replacing the word ‘cake’ and now you’ll understand the guy’s reaction.
LOL!
@Unstoppable_Inner_Strength - I can imagine. “Voda” is the Bengali equivalent to “Pussy”. And people are well aware of it, regardless of whether they use it or not. So imagine an otherwise dignified elderly gentleman, or lady, trying to explain to a room full of brothers, sisters, cousins, nephews & nieces that they had switched over to Vodafone.
Cultural/Language barriers can be funny things. My mom used to be a huge fan of “Thong Song”. Until she finally saw the video. (Wrote a little blog about it here.)
the vagina is a thing of beauty
vaginavaginavaginavaginavaginavaginaaaaaaaaaaa
@Lakakalo - It’s not really a familiar brand in Malaysia tho.
ahahaha! This reminds me of when they tried to market Gerber baby food somewhere over seas (Africa, perhaps…idr for sure) they FREAKED because they thought it was ACTUALLY some kind of blended up baby parts. haha…..you really gotta watch out when marketing anything outside your home country!! You nevvverrr know what you’re going to find.
hahaha…that’s hilarious.
it sort of reminds me of hearing the term “squaw” in relation to Native Americans. People think it means “woman” or “wife”. It actually refers to the same part of the female anatomy that you’re speaking of.
i need to have a voda…. of course i mean the phone
@maniacsicko - Ofcourse, as folks pointed out in the comments, “Voda” means “Water” in Croatian, and “Tap with running water” in Russian, so you just might be mistaken for being thirsty.