A Frenchman, an Englishman and a New Yorker were captured by cannibals. The chief comes to them and says, “The bad news is that now we’ve caught you and we’re going to kill you. We will put you in a pot, cook you, eat you and then we’re going to use your skins to build a canoe. The good news is that you can choose how to die.”

The Frenchman says, “I take ze sword.” The chief gives him a sword, the Frenchman says, “Vive la France!” and runs himself through.

The Englishman says, “a pistol for me please.” The chief gives him a pistol, the Englishman points it at his head and says, “God save the queen!” and blows his brains out.

The New Yorker says, “Gimme a fork!” The chief is puzzled, but he shrugs and gives him a fork. The New Yorker takes the fork and starts jabbing himself all over–the stomach, the sides, the chest, everywhere. There is blood gushing out all over, it’s horrible. The chief is appalled and asks, “My God, what are you doing?”

And the New Yorker responds, “So much for your canoe you stupid cannibal!

An Englishman, Frenchman, Mexican, and Texan were flying across country on a small plane when the pilot comes on the loud speaker and says ” We’re having mechanical problems and the only way we can make it to the next airport is for 3 of you to open the door and jump, at least one of you can survive”

The four open the door and look out below. The Englishman takes a deep breath and hollers “God Save The Queen” and jumps.

The Frenchman gets really inspired and hollers “Viva La France” and he also jumps.

This really pumps up the Texan so he hollers “Remember the Alamo” and he grabs the Mexican and throws him out of the plane.

Cracking an international market is a goal of most growing corporations. It shouldn’t be that hard, yet even the big multi-nationals run into trouble because of language and cultural differences. For example, observe the following examples below.

The name Coca-Cola in China was first rendered as Ke-kou-ke-la. Unfortunately, the Coke company did not discover until after thousands of signs had been printed that the phrase means “bite the wax tadpole” or “female horse stuffed with wax” depending on the dialect. Coke then researched 40,000 Chinese characters and found a close phonetic equivalent, “ko-kou-ko-le,” which can be loosely translated as “happiness in the mouth.”

In Taiwan, the translation of the Pepsi slogan “Come alive with the Pepsi Generation” came out as “Pepsi will bring your ancestors back from the dead.”

Also in Chinese, the Kentucky Fried Chicken slogan “finger-lickin’ good” came out as “eat your fingers off.”

The American slogan for Salem cigarettes, “Salem – Feeling Free,” got translated in the Japanese market into “When smoking Salem, you feel so refreshed that your mind seems to be free and empty.”

When General Motors introduced the Chevy Nova in South America, it was apparently unaware that “no va” means “it won’t go.” After the company figured out why it wasn’t selling any cars, it renamed the car in its Spanish markets to the Caribe.

When Parker Pen marketed a ballpoint pen in Mexico, its ads were supposed to say “It won’t leak in your pocket and embarrass you.” However, the company mistakenly thought the spanish word “embarazar” meant embarrass. Instead the ads said that “It wont leak in your pocket and make you pregnant.”

An American t-shirt maker in Miami printed shirts for the spanish market which promoted the Pope’s visit. Instead of the desired “I Saw the Pope” in Spanish, the shirts proclaimed “I Saw the Potato.”

Colgate introduced a toothpaste in France called Cue, the name of a notorious porno magazine.

In Italy, a campaign for Schweppes Tonic Water translated the name into Schweppes Toilet Water.