December 10, 2003
@ 04:22 PM
Comments [4]
(Not so) culture neutral Power Points

Yesterday, at the Microsoft EMEA Architect Forum in Portugal, I found out yet again that writing slide decks that work for all of Europe is a bit challenging. To make a point about some of the benefits of using an EAI/B2B tool, I was citing some points from a BizTalk case study talking about how the Swedish company Svenska Foder implemented their B2B infrastructure. Guess what? "Foder" isn't something you use to feed animals in Portuguese; it's rather a pretty strong word describing what people do when they're trying (or not trying) to make babies.

Categories: Talks

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Thursday, December 11, 2003 7:42:34 AM UTC
Just wait 'till you get to the Netherlands; SOA is the dutch abbrevation for Sexually Transmitted Disease.
Alex Keizer
Friday, December 12, 2003 2:09:43 AM UTC
Ja. "Sexuel Overdragbare Aandoelingen", denk ik.
Clemens Vasters
Friday, December 12, 2003 9:37:54 PM UTC
What about MTS ? That is the French abbrevation for sexually transmitted diseases.

Is there a pattern here.....
Martin Spedding
Saturday, December 13, 2003 3:28:06 AM UTC
My favorite story was a friend who taught English as a Second Language to foreign students in the US. She had a class of mostly Arabic students, but there was one who was Asian (Japanese, I think). They were introducing themselves and this poor guy's Japanese name sounded the same as the Arabic word for "sodomy". The fact that's a capital offense in Islam, it made it all the worse. A product name is one thing, but there's not much you can do about your own name!
Gordon Weakliem
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