September 7th, 2006
Microsoft Breeds a ‘Fowl’ Vista
By Michael Santo
Executive Editor, RealTechNews
Following in the footsteps of Chevrolet and their poor Nova sales in Latin America (Nova means “it doesn’t go” in Spanish), Microsoft has given the country of Latvia some yuks with the name Vista. It can either mean ‘fowl’, or it can have the slang meaning of a ‘frumpy woman’ in Latvian.
“Everybody in my office bursts out laughing whenever I start talking about the new operating system,” 26-year-old customer assistance manager Zanis, who works in the Latvian capital, Riga, told AFP. “My people giggle about ‘Vista’, but I think it is positive because there are not many computer-related things that make you laugh,” he said. Source: Yahoo! News
We Say: Hey, you can’t expect a company, even Microsoft, to check every language, can you? We may never get anything named if that was the case. And, OK, before people start jumping all over my case … yes, I know the Nova story is an Urban Legend. 
MissingFrame says:
Do you know what micro-soft means in English? It’s surprising they sell to men at all!
September 7th, 2006 at 3:27 pm
David Johnston says:
Nice one
September 7th, 2006 at 4:12 pm
John Corliss says:
Took me about 30 seconds to find an online English to Latvian translator site. Results were:
“skats, ainava, aleja, izredzes”
How hard would it be for Microsoft to do this?
September 8th, 2006 at 2:34 am
Georgef says:
Debunking the nova myth for gringos.
http://www.snopes.com/business/misxlate/nova.asp
BTW, why did they name that dance Bossa Nova? How do you say No Go in Brazil?
September 8th, 2006 at 3:22 am
William Buttcracker says:
Would it really matter if no one in Latvia bought a single MS product. I doubt MS would even notice. That being said if you were to find a hair on your food what part of the body would you want it to come from. Let it be known at http://www.angelfire.com/theforce/indermsbut
To my surprise Butthair is only in 3rd place, I figured everyone would want one of those in their food.
September 8th, 2006 at 5:32 am
Bill Kunert says:
Years ago The Humble Oil and Refining Company was looking to rename the company. They are, of course, multinational and needed a name that didn’t mean something strange in some country. They found that there is no language which has a word with a double x in it so the result was Exxon.
September 8th, 2006 at 8:03 am
Anthony Micali says:
This will probably save thousands of Latvians from the pain and sorrow that comes with using a MS product. http://www.angelfire.com/theforce/indermsbut
September 8th, 2006 at 9:30 am
Jason says:
“Do you know what micro-soft means in English?”
Yes I do. It’s a contraction of Microcomputer and Software.
September 8th, 2006 at 10:01 am
Tarzan says:
Salsa in Korean means diahharea
September 11th, 2006 at 12:49 pm
Lockergnome's Tech News Watch says:
Microsoft Breeds A ‘Fowl’ Vista
Michael Santo of RealTechNews writes: Following in the footsteps of Chevrolet and its poor Nova sales in Latin America (Nova means “it doesn’t go” in Spanish), Microsoft has given the country of Latvia some yuks with the name Vista. It can either me…
September 14th, 2006 at 7:01 am
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July 3rd, 2007 at 8:11 am