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Pesky English

Peter Dexter

Well-known member
I'm always amused that Colombians like to bandy about English including curse words but often put it in odd or meaningless contexts. A store front catering to the hip young in Cali's Chipichape shopping mall put up this amusing window.

33630135125_0b1bfe0892_b.jpg


It doesn't stop there. The other day at that mall there was a window with a sign that said "Black Days". All sorts of possible meanings there but they were just trying to reference "Black Friday". The most hilarious of all was a few years ago when Cali hosted the "World Games" and a bunch of "teams" showed up from some Eastern European and Caribbean island countries to compete in some pretty silly stuff. Anyway a company in Bogotá was contracted to produce the fairly elegant and quite costly trophies for the winners. Then some English speaking competitors noticed the trophies said "Word Games". Oh well...that pesky English.


Of course it works both ways. I remember hearing that years ago Chevrolet had trouble selling their Nova model in Mexico. "No va" of course means "doesn't go".
 

Asher Kelman

OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
I'm always amused that Colombians like to bandy about English including curse words but often put it in odd or meaningless contexts. A store front catering to the hip young in Cali's Chipichape shopping mall put up this amusing window.

33630135125_0b1bfe0892_b.jpg


It doesn't stop there. The other day at that mall there was a window with a sign that said "Black Days". All sorts of possible meanings there but they were just trying to reference "Black Friday". The most hilarious of all was a few years ago when Cali hosted the "World Games" and a bunch of "teams" showed up from some Eastern European and Caribbean island countries to compete in some pretty silly stuff. Anyway a company in Bogotá was contracted to produce the fairly elegant and quite costly trophies for the winners. Then some English speaking competitors noticed the trophies said "Word Games". Oh well...that pesky English.


Of course it works both ways. I remember hearing that years ago Chevrolet had trouble selling their Nova model in Mexico. "No va" of course means "doesn't go".

I presume "Cero" means "Zero"?

If not I am booking my airfare!

Asher
 
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