It’s a downer of a day, but here’s something we can all get a little chuck at: in Japan, Apple might need to change the name of iOS 5’s incredible new Siri voice control assistant. Why? Because in Japanese, Siri sounds an awful lot like a bottom.
According to The Next Web, the word “Siri” in Japan sounds very, very similar to the word “Shiri” (尻), which means, well, a person’s posterior. Buttocks. Ass.
Even more hilariously, a Japanese search for “4S Siri” in Google causes the search engine to ask you if you’re sure you’re not looking for bottom instead?
Pretty funny. Of course, Siri isn’t actually coming to Japan quite yet — it is only launching in English, French, German — so Apple has some time to deal with the branding issues yet.
John Brownlee is a writer for Fast Company, and a contributing writer here at CoM. He has also written for Wired, Playboy, Boing Boing, Popular Mechanics, VentureBeat, and Gizmodo. He lives in Boston with his wife and two parakeets. You can follow him here on Twitter.
10 responses to “In Japanese, iOS 5’s New Siri Feature Sounds A Lot Like ‘Buttocks [Humor]”
Puns in other languages is a minefield for Branding.
My MR2 sounds like Merde (shit) in french.
I’ve been told Pajero mean “Wanker” in spanish.
I once ran a Science Fiction Convention. We put the phrase “Con” in the titles, and make a pun of it. Ours was called was “Con’d’Or” for Condor, until we found what it also translated to. I’m not going t translate it here, I dont want this comment moderated 8)
Just realised its a sound alike:
Audio
coño de oro
I was listening to the radio today (Faith Middleton on WNPR – podcast available), and one of her guests made a great observation. Siri may be the key link for getting Apple into the hands of the “last” segment they haven’t really cracked: older consumers. Toddlers are using iPads. Kids and teens eat them faster than Apple can make them. 18-45s love ’em. 45-65 like them more than PCs and still buy iPods(!). But the elderly set still hasn’t jumped in with both feet, because the learning curve is either too steep, or too daunting. And Siri could solve that. “Make a lunch date with Marjorie” is a lot easier than opening mail, finding Marge’s address, and attach an invite that links to Calendar.
The Nintendo Wee, I mean Wii, springs to mind.
After the first 2 weeks of giggling like 5 year olds, people acclimatise to the new name and no longer think about it.
lol