Leak Jokes

A newlywed couple just moved into their new house. One day the husband comes home from work and his wife says, "Honey, you know, in the upstairs bathroom one of the pipes is leaking, could you fix it?" The husband just looked at his wife and said, "What do I look like, Mr.Plumber?"
A few days went by, and he comes home from work and again his wife asks for a favor, "Honey, the car won't start, I think that it needs a new battery. Could you change it for me?"
"What do I look like, Mr.Goodwrench?" was his response. Another couple of weeks go by, and it's raining pretty hard. His wife then finds a leak in the roof. She pleads with him as he's walking through the door. "Honey, there's a leak on the roof! Can you please fix it?"
He just looked at her and said "What do I look like, Bob Vila?" and sat down with a beer and watched a game on TV.
One weekend the husband woke up and it was pouring pretty hard, but the more...

Below are fine examples of what happens when marketing translations fail to reach a foreign country in an understandable way. Coors put its slogan, "Turn it loose," into Spanish, where it was read as "Suffer from diarrhea." Clairol introduced the "Mist Stick," a curling iron, into German only to find out that "mist" is slang for manure. Not too many people had use for the "manure stick". Scandinavian vacuum manufacturer Electrolux used the following in an American campaign: Nothing sucks like an Electrolux. The American slogan for Salem cigarettes, "Salem-Feeling Free", was translated into the Japanese market as "When smoking Salem, you will feel so refreshed that your mind seems to be free and empty." When Gerber started selling baby food in Africa, they used the same packaging as in the US, with the beautiful baby on the label. Later they learned that in Africa, companies routinely put pictures on the label of more...

Below are fine examples of what happens when marketing translations fail to reach a foreign country in an understandable way. Coors put its slogan, "Turn it loose," into Spanish, where it was read as "Suffer from diarrhea." Clairol introduced the "Mist Stick," a curling iron, into German only to find out that "mist" is slang for manure. Not too many people had use for the "manure stick". Scandinavian vacuum manufacturer Electrolux used the following in an American campaign: Nothing sucks like an Electrolux. The American slogan for Salem cigarettes, "Salem-Feeling Free", was translated into the Japanese market as "When smoking Salem, you will feel so refreshed that your mind seems to be free and empty." When Gerber started selling baby food in Africa, they used the same packaging as in the US, with the beautiful baby on the label. Later they learned that in Africa, companies routinely put pictures on the label of more...

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...
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 more...

An explosion ripped through Baghdad the other day, nothing new. In fact most people wouldn't even read a story about an Iraqi explosion unless Lindsey Lohan was involved. This explosion, that killed 47, was special. How special? I'm glad you asked. This explosion, one of many that day, wasn't caused by insurgents or improvised explosive devices, this was caused by a gas leak, a well timed and detonated gas leak. According to US Officials, an explosion that ripped through a mosque and a library was caused by a gas leak and not sectarian violence that has gripped the country. I, for one, would like to thank the Bush administration for fighting the gas leaks over there so we don't have to fight them over here.
One survivor, Abu Malik Ababas, said, "When I saw that rocket coming towards the minaret, my first thought was,'Did I turn off the stove?'."