Culture Shock?

U5 asked me if I’d encountered any culture shock incidents while up here in Canada. To be honest, I’ve not really had many issues--it's just little tweaks that keep me on my toes. It's a washroom, not a bathroom. Thinking in metric (or using the –tiny- numbers on the speedometer when I’m driving). Paper currency with more colors than green and black. The one- and two-dollar coins (loonies and toonies!— they’re so Not A Dumb Idea.). Some people actually do use “eh” as a question indicator. But it's amazing how much of the "country user interface" is identical (e.g., stop signs are completely the same). It's like an exceptionally good software emulation of the United States. Oops… I think Canadians might take offense….er… offence?… at that .

I did have a culture shock moment in the shower though. I was washing my hair with my bottle of Pert, turned to the other side, and saw the French label was "Pret." That's French for "ready," in case you didn't already know that. My reaction was, "what the hell... why do they feel the need to change the name of their product?... please, stop the madness..."

Then I had a chance to look at my Cassell's French-English dictionary: perte (n.f.)--loss, waste, wastefulness, ruin, fall, doom. Hmmm.... probably not a product I want to be rubbing into my hair in the morning. Good thing marketing caught that one. Aha... one of my favorite mistranslated product stories:

http://www.ropesend.com/ropesend_translations/lost_tl/tl1004.html

Ford also had bad luck in Brazil, when their car, the Pinto, flopped. The company later found out that "Pinto" was Brazilian slang for "tiny male genitals" ("small male appendage"). Ford finally pried all the nameplates off their Pintos and substituted the name "Corcel," which means horse.

Argh... in other news, I'm just 2438 miles away from United Elite status for 2004. I'll be flying to SFO in October for Crack’s wedding. Mileage YYZ-SFO: 2259 miles. Grr. Looks like I'll be gunning for a connecting flight, *just* for mileage. It makes my brain hurt.