INEXPLICABLE OBJECT OF THE WEEK
Week of 6/27/99:
WEEK 63
Space Fighter
Well, nothing too exciting about this relic from the transformable-robot boom of a dozen years ago. Except that it's so shoddily made that it transforms into a bunch of loose parts and choking hazards for kids of all ages.
(A NoBot called Choke-Kill?
A Deformer named Esophagus Jam?)
Naah, the fun is in that bit of text on the box it's leaning on, obviously written by someone who was chosen for the duty because he was the guy who owned the Korean/English dictionary. Evidently, he was so unfamiliar with idiomatic English that he named the 2 main characters of this kiddie story "Dick" and "Hard."
"Hardes, who dispatched secretly in the earth from
sigmar star in the galactic system for the peace of
the universe, herads that earthian is cruel and war-
like creature and it will be dangerous for the peace
of the universe unless the earth is destroyed.
On July, 1999,
Uraneus, the emperor of Sigmar Star, sends a boy,
Dicke, who has hard-headed judgement to the earth
again.
Dicke, who entered into the inside of Tan who fell a
prey to a shark by becoming a light, begins to work
by lending Tom's body. After then, Dicke and Hardes
who meet in a forest to avoid man's eyes claims
that earthian's history is a series of gruesome war
and if they are not destroy the earth to get rid of
the cruel earthians, it is difficult to be ensured pe-
ace and order of the universe. But Dicke tells a sto-
ry of earthian who are endavouring for warm hu-
manity and peace from near by Tan
and claims that they should not spoil a great thing
which is the destroy of the earth. Finally, the two
earthians parts with by the conflict of opinions on
the earth. Hardes makes to appear a monster used
a gene, and Dicke confronts him with Space Fighter
which is tranfigurating robot made by alloy.
And then..."
And don't think it's a one-way street: Americans forcing their fine consumer products down their fellow earthian's throats have had the same problem.
Supposedly, the highest-rated episode of a TV show in Korea was the premiere of "Joannie Loves Chachi." "Chachi" is Korean for "penis."
You know that furniture polish, "Pledge?" They tried to sell it in Holland without realizing "Pledge" is Dutch for "Piss." Bet it left a nice shine, though.
But this is just in from Larry Koch:
"Not true. My mom's Dutch and has used Pledge for years without the name ever making her laugh, because it doesn't mean anything at all. The closest thing I can think of would be Plets (smack) or Plens (splash).
They did once have a polish of some sort there called Super Glans (meaning 'super shine') which would obviously never sell in English-speaking countries."
The reason they don't have Big Macs in France has nothing to do with the metric system. Originally, MacDonalds' sold it under the translation "Gros Mec." Or, "Big Pimp."
KFC's slogan "It's finger-lickin' good!" came out in Chinese as "You'll eat your fingers!"
Coke has had its share of problems with China, too. There, "Coca-Cola" is the phonetic pronunciation of "Bite the Wax Tadpole." And their old slogan "Coke Adds Life!" came across as "Coke Brings Your Ancestors Back From The Dead!"
Inexplicable Link of the Week
Gone And Forgotten
©1999 Bill Young