How Should We Handle Words That Are Bad In *Some* Languages?

[Raphael]

Warning: Language

Something that I just read in a book got me thinking a bit. The book deals with the English and German languages, but it's not the book that I complained about on Thursday. Anyway, one chapter deals with words that are dirty or offensive in one language but not the other. For instance, the author writes (translation mine):

In such moments I have to think of a colleague who used to work for the Central German Broadcasting in Leipzig, specifically for the television magazine "Fakt". He once told me that in other countries, he was horribly embarrassed by that, because, after all, "Fakt" sounds like fucked. Indeed I do not want to know what people on the other end of a telephone line imagine when they hear the (somehow necessary) introduction "I work for a German television show called Fakt..."

Later in the same chapter, the author mentions the Mitsubishi Pajero and the Mazda Laputa, which probably didn't sell that well in the Spanish-speaking world, and the Audi e-tron, which probably didn't sell that well in France.

And, well, now I wonder: how much should we try to be aware of offensive or otherwise unfortunate meanings of words in the world's major, or perhaps even minor, languages? Should that broadcasting organization have been more careful about naming its shows in the first place? If we should be considerate about such stuff, which languages should we consider? All the world's languages? All the world's "major" languages, by whatever definition of "major"? All the "major" languages in our own part of the world? Would it even by possible to name your new startup, political movement, breakfast cereal, washing machine, or whatever, something that's neither offensive nor a double entendre in any of the world's languages? What should we do?

Personally, I went to a school named after a famous late 18th century German philosopher, and I'm not at all sure how I'd handle it if an English speaker, in a spoken English-language conversation, would ask me where I went to school, especially if the conversation would be in public in a partly or mostly English-speaking environment.

[zompist]

Later in the same chapter, the author mentions the Mitsubishi Pajero and the Mazda Laputa, which probably didn't sell that well in the Spanish-speaking world, and the Audi e-tron, which probably didn't sell that well in France.

And, well, now I wonder: how much should we try to be aware of offensive or otherwise unfortunate meanings of words in the world's major, or perhaps even minor, languages? Should that broadcasting organization have been more careful about naming its shows in the first place? If we should be considerate about such stuff, which languages should we consider? All the world's languages? All the world's "major" languages, by whatever definition of "major"? All the "major" languages in our own part of the world? Would it even by possible to name your new startup, political movement, breakfast cereal, washing machine, or whatever, something that's neither offensive nor a double entendre in any of the world's languages? What should we do?

What should we do? Have a laugh. It's pretty hilarious that cars have been made with those names.

As a general moral matter, saying something bad when you didn't know it was a bad word is a matter of comedy, not morality. And surely one of the oldest jokes in the world.

If you are a manufacturer, this is one reason you pay for a naming consultant. Obviously they're going to look at major markets, and that's it.

Personally, I went to a school named after a famous late 18th century German philosopher, and I'm not at all sure how I'd handle it if an English speaker, in a spoken English-language conversation, would ask me where I went to school, especially if the conversation would be in public in a partly or mostly English-speaking environment.

Kant, I assume? We have heard of him, you know. If you use a German a you'd probably be fine, and even more so if you said you went to "Immanuel Kant." (You'd generate more confusion if you say you studied at a Gymnasium...)

[Rounin Ryuuji]

I find it vaguely amusing anybody would name a car "Laputa". I know it's almost certainly taken from Castle in the Sky (whose creator apparently didn't know what it meant), or else directly from Gulliver's Travels (whose creator certainly did), and was probably chosen by somebody who had either not seen the film or read the book (or totally missed the point of whichever it was).

[alice]

This reminds me of the time Celtic Football Club were interested in a player called Rafael Scheidt, and the saga of his signing stretched out for several days, requiring the BBC Scotland news team to refer frequently to "Brazilian player Rafael". This prompted a late-night phone-in football radio programme called Eat My Goal to run a nightly competition for the best headline about the whole silly business. "Scheidt hits fan" was a frequent favourtite.

[Travis B.]

Personally, I went to a school named after a famous late 18th century German philosopher, and I'm not at all sure how I'd handle it if an English speaker, in a spoken English-language conversation, would ask me where I went to school, especially if the conversation would be in public in a partly or mostly English-speaking environment.

Kant, I assume? We have heard of him, you know. If you use a German a you'd probably be fine, and even more so if you said you went to "Immanuel Kant." (You'd generate more confusion if you say you studied at a Gymnasium...)

Normally Kant ([kʰãʔ], [kʰãʔt], or [kʰãnt] depending on carefulness) and the other word are not homophones in the English here, and I have never come across an English-speaker who was embarrassed discussing Kant.

[anteallach]

Personally, I went to a school named after a famous late 18th century German philosopher, and I'm not at all sure how I'd handle it if an English speaker, in a spoken English-language conversation, would ask me where I went to school, especially if the conversation would be in public in a partly or mostly English-speaking environment.

Kant, I assume? We have heard of him, you know. If you use a German a you'd probably be fine, and even more so if you said you went to "Immanuel Kant." (You'd generate more confusion if you say you studied at a Gymnasium...)

Normally Kant ([kʰãʔ], [kʰãʔt], or [kʰãnt] depending on carefulness) and the other word are not homophones in the English here, and I have never come across an English-speaker who was embarrassed discussing Kant.

Quite. Even English speakers whose STRUT is very [a]-like don't generally use it for [a] sounds in loanwords and names in my experience. BrE will use TRAP or PALM (mostly, I think, depending on whether we think the vowel in the source language is long or not), AmE mostly LOT/PALM. So Kant is safe.

[Raphael]

Thank you, everyone, interesting perspectives!

Normally Kant ([kʰãʔ], [kʰãʔt], or [kʰãnt] depending on carefulness) and the other word are not homophones in the English here, and I have never come across an English-speaker who was embarrassed discussing Kant.

Quite. Even English speakers whose STRUT is very [a]-like don't generally use it for [a] sounds in loanwords and names in my experience. BrE will use TRAP or PALM (mostly, I think, depending on whether we think the vowel in the source language is long or not), AmE mostly LOT/PALM. So Kant is safe.

Thing is, since my first language is German, I'd feel a bit weird about using anglicized pronunciations of German names, even when speaking English.

[doctor shark]

What should we do? Have a laugh. It's pretty hilarious that cars have been made with those names.

As a general moral matter, saying something bad when you didn't know it was a bad word is a matter of comedy, not morality. And surely one of the oldest jokes in the world.

Humor like that is definitely the best policy, at least in my experience. I had a coworker in Luxembourg from India whose name, in French, means "pussy" (in both senses). And you don't expect someone to change their name because of an unfortunate coincidence with their name; my given name, for example, commonly reads as a girl's name in French, which made for awkward things.

In both cases, we just had a laugh over the matter and went along with our business.

[anteallach]

Thank you, everyone, interesting perspectives!

Normally Kant ([kʰãʔ], [kʰãʔt], or [kʰãnt] depending on carefulness) and the other word are not homophones in the English here, and I have never come across an English-speaker who was embarrassed discussing Kant.

Quite. Even English speakers whose STRUT is very [a]-like don't generally use it for [a] sounds in loanwords and names in my experience. BrE will use TRAP or PALM (mostly, I think, depending on whether we think the vowel in the source language is long or not), AmE mostly LOT/PALM. So Kant is safe.

Thing is, since my first language is German, I'd feel a bit weird about using anglicized pronunciations of German names, even when speaking English.

Understood, but most (I think) English speakers wouldn't actually notice a problem: German /a/ does not sound like STRUT to us. There's a reason why STRUT isn't used when anglicising it.

Another English/German example is the recently renamed Austrian village now called Fugging. But I think the renaming was in response to the sign being frequently stolen by tourists rather than any real embarrassment at the old name.

[zompist]

Hmm, maybe Raphael should worry... depending on whether he's talking to Brits or Americans.

Cardinal ʌ is just unrounded ɔ... but of course that doesn't tell us much about actual English [ʌ].

My impression is that American [ʌ] is rather high, and this is confirmed by quite a few diagrams in Labov. Very often [ʌ] is not at all far from [ u], and higher than [e]. This is very unlikely to be confused with [a].

But a number of Googled diagrams, e.g. the ones here, suggest that in British English, [ʌ] is quite low, lower than cardinal [ɔ], and it's also rather centralized. That seems closer to German [a]. Brits, is that correct?

[Travis B.]

Hmm, maybe Raphael should worry... depending on whether he's talking to Brits or Americans.

Cardinal ʌ is just unrounded ɔ... but of course that doesn't tell us much about actual English [ʌ].

My impression is that American [ʌ] is rather high, and this is confirmed by quite a few diagrams in Labov. Very often [ʌ] is not at all far from [ u], and higher than [e]. This is very unlikely to be confused with [a].

But a number of Googled diagrams, e.g. the ones here, suggest that in British English, [ʌ] is quite low, lower than cardinal [ɔ], and it's also rather centralized. That seems closer to German [a]. Brits, is that correct?

The STRUT here seems to be essentially cardinal [ʌ], being open-mid, fully backed, and unrounded. OTOH, LOT/PALM here seems to be essentially cardinal [a], and sounds just like German /a/ to me.

[Creyeditor]

As a native German speaker, German /a/ is very central and perceptually close to AE and BR STRUT for me. German /a/ sounds very different from both PALM and TRAP in either AE or BE. I couldn't reliably distinguish German Kant and the c-word.

[Ares Land]

I had electronic classes in high school. As it happens 'bit' sound just like the French word for 'dick'. You can imagine just how that went with teenagers.

Our electronics teachers had a nice trick: first class in the year, he would say: 'I'm going to say it, and you're allowed to laugh this once: bit'

Our English teacher was less adept, he had some trouble with the Beat Generation.

(Also heard in English class: 'What kind of animal is it? -- A cock! -- Yes, a rooster...')

[Raphael]

I think I generally agree with Creyeditor. I say "I think" because, while I agree with Creyeditor's conclusion, my "Learn about linguistics by soaking it up through osmosis as a result of hanging out on the ZBB" method hasn't gotten me to the point where I can really follow most of the discussion of specific phonemes in this thread yet.

[linguistcat]

I think I generally agree with Creyeditor. I say "I think" because, while I agree with Creyeditor's conclusion, my "Learn about linguistics by soaking it up through osmosis as a result of hanging out on the ZBB" method hasn't gotten me to the point where I can really follow most of the discussion of specific phonemes in this thread yet.

If it helps, I also agree. STRUT and German /a/ sound extremely similar to me and I've lived my whole life in the US. So Kant as pronounced in German does sound a lot like the C-word.

That said, I think you can only be held accountable for what you can reasonably know in this case. Or what you can reasonably research. Since I study Japanese, knowing that /busu/ is an insult and /basu/ is transportation is in the very least a good idea. If my name sounds like something funny in a language I never studied nor even know about, and I get stranded somehow in that part of the world, well I can only hope someone speaks English so I can explain. But otherwise, it's not a big deal.

[Raholeun]

I don't care what people think; my kid does not nap, but he takes a Nickerchen..

[xxx]

I had a coworker in Luxembourg from India whose name, in French, means "pussy" (in both senses). And you don't expect someone to change their name because of an unfortunate coincidence with their name

and yet, many official name changes are due to this kind of coincidence...

[anteallach]

As a native German speaker, German /a/ is very central and perceptually close to AE and BR STRUT for me. German /a/ sounds very different from both PALM and TRAP in either AE or BE. I couldn't reliably distinguish German Kant and the c-word.

Germans often seem to perceive BrE STRUT as /a/, but BrE speakers seem to mostly perceive German /a/ as TRAP. I certainly do, but I'm from far enough north that I'm in a region where TRAP has always been [a] anyway; my impression is that this is true of most others as well, but I may be wrong.

What impression do you get from the recordings of TRAP and STRUT (and others, perhaps) in Geoff Lindsey's posts
https://www.englishspeechservices.com/b ... sh-vowels/
and
https://www.englishspeechservices.com/b ... r-dummies/

[Raphael]

What impression do you get from the recordings of TRAP and STRUT (and others, perhaps) in Geoff Lindsey's posts
https://www.englishspeechservices.com/b ... sh-vowels/
and
https://www.englishspeechservices.com/b ... r-dummies/

The vowel in "Kant" is closer to some of the STRUT recordings than to any of the TRAP recordings, IMO, though many of those are very hard to tell apart for me.

Hm, I wonder if some of the English speakers here might confuse German /a/ and /ah/ or /aa/? It might add to the confusion that German /A/ when standing on its own, like when you're reciting the Alphabet or pronouncing an acronym, is generally closer to German /ah/ or /aa/ within words than to most instances of German /a/ within words. Though there are long, /ah/ -like instances of /a/ in German, too, for instance in "Bad". But, at least in my dialect, the /a/ in "Kant" is short, like in "Wanne", not long, like in "Bad".

[Creyeditor]

What impression do you get from the recordings of TRAP and STRUT (and others, perhaps) in Geoff Lindsey's posts
https://www.englishspeechservices.com/b ... sh-vowels/
and
https://www.englishspeechservices.com/b ... r-dummies/

The vowel in "Kant" is closer to some of the STRUT recordings than to any of the TRAP recordings, IMO, though many of those are very hard to tell apart for me.

I definitely agree. It is also different from the BATH vowel. It might be important to note that I am from Northern Germany and there is no systematic contrast for me between short /a/ and the unstressed vocalized R/a-schwa /ɐ/ in Arbeiter.