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 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 might never get anything named if that were the case. And, OK, before people start jumping all over my case… yes, I know the Nova story is an urban legend.

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