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Comment by noonespecial | Hacker News Reader

Still not as bad as Chevy Nova. They should have called Vista Nova... now that would have filed neatly in the truth in advertising section.

Kind of the same thing. People worried that "Nova" would sound like 'no va' in spanish, which meant "no go". In reality they are pronounced differently and it was no big deal.

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The anecdote about the Chevy Nova sounds like a fabrication trying to explain a failure. The people in México (where the Chevy Nova failed) don't associate the word Nova with No Go. If you want a negative association, we used to have a gasoline brand called Nova. It was formulated with lead and was discontinued for more ecological formulas.

I heard that anecdote in a linguistics class back in college. The same professor shared another:

Back when the advertising slogan for Coca-Cola was "Coke adds life," an unfortunate Chinese translation came through as "Coke brings your ancestors back from the grave". And, of course, they take their ancestors pretty seriously, adding to the hilarity.

:-)

The "brings your ancestors back from the grave" claim is unsubstantiated, and is about Pepsi anyway.

http://www.snopes.com/business/misxlate/ancestor.asp

It wouldn't surprise me to learn that a professor related something apocryphal for the sake of illustration.

I also heard said anecdote, along with the fact that it didn't actually effect Chevy Nova sales; it sold admirably.

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