[1377] in Humor
HUMOR: Well, after Bobbit, this isn't all that unusual...
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Andrew A. Bennett)
Sun Apr 7 19:04:19 1996
To: humor@MIT.EDU
Date: Sun, 07 Apr 1996 18:52:17 EDT
From: "Andrew A. Bennett" <abennett@MIT.EDU>
Date: Thu, 28 Mar 1996 11:05:01 -0500 (EST)
From: Keith Bostic <bostic@bsdi.com>
Subject: Penis for President
Forwarded-by: Robert Tarrall <tarrall@solarz.Colorado.EDU>
Forwarded-by: K Wade Turner <a-wadet@MICROSOFT.com>
Forwarded-by: Joseph K. Huffman
Tehran (Reuter) - For the past few weeks, the behind the doors
discussion at many Iranian newspaper and magazine publishing outfits
seems to be revolving not around political, social and economic issues,
but the spelling of Bob Dole's name instead. It turns out that the
proper spelling of the Republican Party's likely nominee, Dole, is
exactly the same as that of the word penis in Persian. In Persian some
vowel symbols are often omitted, resulting in the ambiguity. "At first
it might seem funny to some people, but it's creating a serious issue
for us. How can we write headlines using that word?,'' said Majid Fanni,
a prepress specialist at a Tehran service bureau.
Professor Hassan Khadem, a Persian literature lecturer at New York
University added "It's actually not a real problem. They could write
his name a couple of different ways to avoid the ambiguity. But for an
exact pronunciation, well, they'd have to spell it that way.'' Fanni
explained "It's not easy. In print, especially for headlines, we don't
use vowel symbols. Because of that, it can be read in that way.''
International organizations are quite familiar and cognizant of
these types of issues. General Motors for example, spends over 300,000
dollars a year just researching car names to make sure they are not trade
marked, as well as being acceptable in foreign countries.
Ali Zarkoob, a grade school teacher in Western Tehran said "I'm sure
kids will find it very funny. The humor magazines will probably go crazy
over it too.'' A columnist for Tehran's Hamshahri daily who requested
to remain anonymous stated "It's a real problem that no one wants to
face. Think about it. What should we write if he wins? 'Clinton loses
Presidency'? That's not right. 'Penis wins US Presidency' isn't exactly
acceptable either.''
