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Comment by Loic | Hacker News Reader

JooJoo is pronounced "joujou" in French, which is the diminutive form of "jouet", a toy. This form is only used when referring to the toys of little kids up to 7 year old. $500 for a little kid toy? Not for me, sorry.

They are definitely missing the TechCrunch ad agency now to not make such a basic check.

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It's a little kid's toy because the name sounds a bit like the French word for little kid's toy, so you won't buy one?

Did you buy an Acer Ferrari laptop because you thought it was really a Ferrari sports car?

What a daft reason for not buying one.

The name sounds _exactly_ like 'little kid's toy' in French, so, indeed, it follows that it will carry those connotations to French speaking people (you're not one, I'm guessing). Shakespeare may have found a rose by another name smelling just as sweet, but in the centuries since his time we've learned that varieties called 'poo-poo' just don't sell at the garden center.

The 'Wii' sold OK in English speaking markets so I don't see what the problem is.

Ha - I'd thought this was smart. We expect Japanese things to be a bit oddball by our standard, and this delivered.

Nintendo also has a lot more marketing to back up their choice of name.

Not exactly the same. An English speaker would pronounce d-sounds before the js in "JooJoo" that wouldn't be there in the French "joujou".

The Chevy Nova completely flopped in Spanish speaking countries, primarily because in Spanish, "Nova" means "no go".

No, it didn't: http://www.snopes.com/business/misxlate/nova.asp

Whoops! Thanks for the re-education.

But there were some other cars that had their names changed, like the "Pagero", that sounds like someone that frequently masturbates :-)

That's an urban legend, kind of like saying a dinette set called "Notable" would flop in English speaking countries because we would assume it has "no table".

Here's the snopes: http://www.snopes.com/business/misxlate/nova.asp

That same french term became synonymous with supernatural fetishism in the US (via west african slaves) and was turned into "juju", which is almost always preceded by the word "bad" as another way of saying bad luck or a feeling of impending doom....

In Spain it was introduced by Tarzan films.

it also is Cantonese slang for penis

The screen is 12 inches. I suddenly feel... small.

Same way with softimage back in the day. It is pronounced softimazh, but it took bazillion of dead trees and marketing to explain to users how it is pronounced. You're doing something wrong if you need to use dictionary explanation in your marketing material imo.

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