Comments on: Welcome to Butthollenring: When Language Collides and Why It Matters at Work

By: Horse Tense

Horse Tense — Thu, 05 Jun 2025 18:46:19 +0000

When I, as an American English speaker in NZ, learned the correct pronounciation of “Whakapapa” and “Whakatāne”… took me awhile to say without blushing.

Later, teaching English in Japan, I learned from a rather cheeky student of mine the similarity “Excited” has to “Kusai-desu” くさいです and how “Uncle” sounds just like “Unko!” うんこ

Words naughty enough to keep an 8 year old entertained for the rest of class!

… And finally the dawning look of horror on Japanese Office Manager’s face when I proudly told her of my success in ordering a “Chikan Sandwich” at McDonald’s.

I didn’t go back for weeks.

By: Mike

Mike — Wed, 04 Jun 2025 01:31:20 +0000

Also, I knew a Korean woman who felt the need to change her name. Her family followed a traditional system used over the generations in which certain Chinese characters were assigned in order by birth, and when her turn came, the first character was jeong (Chinese jing, ‘respectful’). Then -ja meaning ‘child’ (Chinese zi) was added, as it often is in women’s names, like Japanese -ko (same character, same custom). This name, however, is homophonous in Korean (not Chinese) with the word for semen (jeongja, from Chinese jingzi, though with a different tone on jing ‘seed’). Hence the name change.

By: Mike

Mike — Wed, 04 Jun 2025 01:25:35 +0000

My name in Mongolian sounds like “only the T shirt was too big.” While I have native names in other languages, I haven’t bothered taking a Mongolian name (not that that is common in Mongolia), because clearly that was meant by fate.

By: Becky Bortak

Becky Bortak — Tue, 03 Jun 2025 11:50:17 +0000

While working for a global company we created an email address for our division’s DEI group. The acronym for our division was ARP so the email was ARPDEI. We quickly found out that this is the word for fart in Portuguese! We immediately changed it.