[Sca-cooks] Truth in advertising

[Robin Carroll-Mann]

-----Original Message-----
From: Daniel Myers <edouard at medievalcookery.com>

I was curious (because a couple of things I'd believed turned out to be 
hoaxes) and checked some of these out at snopes.com

> * The Dairy Association's huge success with the campaign
> "Got Milk?" prompted them to expand advertising to Mexico.
> It was soon brought to their attention the Spanish transla-
> tion read "Are you lactating?"

> * Coors put its slogan, "Turn It Loose," into Spanish, where
> it was read as "Suffer From Diarrhea."
>
> * An American T-shirt maker in Miami printed shirts for the
> Spanish market which promoted the Pope's visit. Instead of
> "I saw the Pope" (el Papa), the shirts read "I Saw the
> Potato" (la papa).

Snopes doesn't seem to know about any of these three.
_______________________________________________

The "Got Milk" story is true, sort of.  The translation problem was pointed out by a Hispanic marketing consultant in the early stages of planning the advertising campaign. 
http://www.asia.businessweek.com/smallbiz/content/jun2003/sb20030619_6277_sb017.htm

No idea about the Coors story.

I can believe the t-shirt story.  ISTR hearing about such t-shirts at the time of his visit.  That's the sort of mistake that a small business might make, if they did their own translating.



Lady Brighid ni Chiarain
Barony of Settmour Swamp, East Kingdom