Nokia's Branding Oops: Lumia Can Mean "Prostitute"

[DSpider]

I bet it will sell well in the Spanish market (meaning like half of US or something like that).

 

[Guest]

just change the name in certain country that have problem in language clash. anyway, do not forget dell peju as one of the failures in naming device (peju is a unofficial language of sperm in bahasa).

 

[bin1127]

If i'm paying $600 for a phone it might as well be a prostitute as also.

 

[Guest]

Third paragraph in and I thought, "must be a wolfgang article." Scrolled up, yup, sure was...

 

[de5_Roy]

takeaway from these tech-namings:
elop is pole backwards.....
apple's iphone has ass voice recognition.
don't use too much lumia in a pajero or your pinto will get mist-y.

 

[Guest]

in spanish prostitute is also said "lumi", but "lumia" has no meaning and it doesn't even sound similar to spanis person. I wonder if the one that wrote that knows spanis ;-)

 

[swamprat]

Ignoring shirak's point (i.e. that the entire story is on a false premise anyway), so what if there's a dodgy connotation to the name. Look at the Wii - that did quite well despite (at least in the UK) sounding like a common (for children at least) work for urine / urination

 

[alidan]

i would buy a prostitute, noting can beat telling people "i own a prostitute, want to see it"

 

[ojas]

Chris Angelini is the World-Wide Editor-in-Chief for Tom's Hardware.

Wolfgang aspires to be the iCrappy Editor in Chief for Apple's PR department.

Heck you're not even a registered Tom's member, Wolfgang! Blasphemy!

 

[jojesa]

Article: Waste of time
Comments: Priceless
Lumia sounds like a word in Spanish slang (in a small area of a country) for prostitute, no Brazilian.
Hey Wolfgang did you search Siri...it sounds like a word for butthole in Japanese.

 

[eyemaster]

[citation][nom]alikum[/nom]An article bashing Nokia (and MSFT) by Wolfgang. Why am I not surprised? You're a hardcore Apple fan, we all get it.[/citation]
Are you saying he's not right? Because he is. MS needs a big bang phone, not generic with no wow.

 

[__Miguel_]

@__-_-_-__ : you're absolutely correct, "Brazilian" doesn't exist as a language (though it's often referred as "brasileiro", meaning "from Brazil" by Portuguese people). There is, however, Portuguese, or European Portuguese (Pt-Pt) Brazilian Portuguese (Pt-Br). Same thing for "Spanish" (though it is very common to use the term outside of Spain), Spanish people don't usually like to be referred as speaking "Spanish", but "Castellano", which is the main, but not only, language spoken in Spain and the official language (with regional variants) in Latin America.

So, @writer (and @editor, too), please check these kind of things before posting, please.

As for the word having a very dodgy meaning on one language slang, well, "mist" happens... I have a fairly extensive contact with "Castellano", and I have never actually heard that word. More important than crying "it's a naughty name", it would be better to know how prevalent that word is in actual use.

For instance, I remember a very old Ford model that was renamed when it was introduced in Portugal: the "Ascona". Perfectly neutral name in most countries, but in Portugal a "cona" is a VERY harsh slang term which virtually 100% of the population able to speak knows about (and has probably used at least once in their lifetime, with many people using it on a fairly regular basis) that roughly translates to the female genitalia. So the car had to change its name...

Also, anyone from France care to remind us how the Toyota MR2 is named over there? MR2 reads as "merdeux", or literally, shitty, in French, btw.

I seriously doubt Nokia hasn't considered this (A LOT of research goes into naming a product nowadays), and if it is any serious problem, the affected market(s) will most likely have an alternative naming (probably Searay), so not to cause any issues and loss of sales. Meanwhile, the rest of the world will (or should) stay relatively oblivious to those name changes.

Cheers.

Miguel

 

[scrumworks]

Stop dissing Nokia Wolfgang. Go rather gang-bang you iPhone with other hipsters. Nokia has the best naming convention. Or can you exactly tell what level of device HTC Desire or Mozart is? No. Can you tell me is Motorola Atrix or Admiral highest end phones? No. Yes, iPhone is very simple name but what if Apple had tens of models in its portfolio? You gotta have a decent naming scheme you dick. So what if some Spanish dearest comrade gets a kick out of Lumia name. And its a SLANG word for Christs sake. "Prostituta" or "Puta" are real Spanish translations.

 

[scrumworks]

[citation][nom]__-_-_-__[/nom]This article is full of incorrections. There's no such a thing as "Brazilian" language, they talk Portuguese.[/citation]

Well what do you expect from some American redneck dick. They don't know or care anything whats happening outside their own sandbox.

 

[jeremy88]

Hey Wolfgang Gruener, wtf are you talking about "two losers don't make a winner??" When has Microsoft failed? Is it or is it not still the undisputed leader in the PC market?

And I love how you conveniently only talk about the Lumia so that your iDied fanboy ass can pretend like iFailed is the better company. Why didn't you mention the bendable phone Nokia is currently working on, and how that IS actually groundbreaking??

Samsung outsold iPricks during Q3, and unless the rotting Apple doesn't do something from the grave, or simply use their method iSue, expect for Samsung and Nokia to soon dominate over iDied once again forcing it to make mediocre computers and high-end rates.

 

[jeremy88]

mediocre computers at high-end rates.... *^^

 

[Guest]

Anyway here in Latin America Lumia doesn't have any meaning, maybe just in Spain?

 

[onanonanon]

[citation][nom]scrumworks[/nom]Well what do you expect from some American redneck dick. They don't know or care anything whats happening outside their own sandbox.[/citation]

Whilst I don't like any of the author's articles either and I would also agree that 'American redneck dicks' don't know or care about the rest of the world, I think the name 'Wolfgang Gruener' in itself should be enough to make you suspect that he probably - just maybe - isn't American at all. Now who's the dick?

 

[Camikazi]

Somehow I am thinking Nokia was going more for the "art created from light" definition of Lumia, who cares if it may mean prostitute in some other language, the original reason they picked the name is the important one.

 

[sirius100]

Spanish is my native language and I have NEVER heard that word before, perhaps YOU should have done some research or perhaps ask a native speaker to see if it's really worthy of an article... if anything, the first association that will pop into any native speaker's mind is something to do with LIGHT, seeing as it's Latin root is obvious. It's not the same as the Pajero which can be interpreted as a guy who masturbates too much in most Spanish-speaking countries.

Wolfgang, when are you finally gonna quit TH and go to Apple? Please, the bias in every one of your articles is getting out of hand, you just took a piece of information not even worthy of water cooler talk (I'm pretty sure no one will know that archaic definition for Lumia) and turned it into a piece bashing Nokia and Microsoft.

Also, I doubt there's any other phone other than the latest iPhone you'd wait in line for, so that's really not a measure of how appealing a new phone is as far as I'm concerned