There are ads on the sides of buses that espouse reasonably-priced travel packages to the lovely island country of Samoa. They say, 'Samoa for Lowa!' Get it? It's clever because it rhymes.
It just occurred to me today that this is an exceedingly weird ad. As an American, I 'get' it. Because I say sa-MO-a. For LO-wa.
But New Zealanders say SAM-o-a. Pasifika peoples say something closer to SAM-ua. For LO-wa? No. No rhyming. No cleverness. That's just poor spelling, is all that is.
Monday, February 01, 2010
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
1 comment:
When I hear of such cases, I'm reminded of Chevrolet when they began marketing their 'Nova' in spanish speaking countries. It didn't do so well. Hmmmm...do you suppose it was because 'No va' in spanish means, "It doesn't go?"
Post a Comment