Stranger than fiction . . . Is that really what it means??

I hate writing under someone else's terms and conditions. That's why I'll never be a published author. My editor would be calling me day and night saying "Where's the book? Your contract has the book coming out in (enter date here)!" It's certainly not because I don't have enough good ideas. Oh I definitely do. For instance, my first book would be a love story about a woman named Maclene Macaroni (Mac for short) torn between the two men in her life, (Sauce Marinera and Cheese Velveeta.) Mac would of course, in the end choose Cheese Velveeta, because in her shallow form of thinking, Mac and Cheese sounds better together than Mac and Sauce. The next book would focus on the jilted Sauce Marinera. He has vowed to never love another noodle, er, woman again. But then Penne comes into his life, changing his outlook on life and love . . .

Erm . . . Ok so maybe not. Fiction has never been my strongsuit. But honestly, I think real life is stranger than fiction most days . . .

But you know, speaking of writing . . . the English language is wonderful and complex, and when translated into other languages can have disasterous meanings as seen in the next examples:

• Coors put its slogan, "Turn it loose," into Spanish, where it was read as "Suffer from diarrhea".

• Scandinavian vacuum manufacturer Electrolux used the following in an American campaign: Nothing sucks like an Electrolux.

• In Chinese, the Kentucky Fried Chicken slogan "finger-lickin' good" came out as "eat your fingers off".

• The American slogan for Salem cigarettes, "Salem-Feeling Free", was translated into the Japanese market as "When smoking Salem, you will feel so refreshed that your mind seems to be free and empty".

• When Gerber started selling baby food in Africa, they used the same packaging as in the US, with the beautiful Caucasian baby on the label. Later they learned that in Africa, companies routinely put pictures on the label of what's inside, since most people can't read English.

• Colgate introduced a toothpaste in France called Cue, the name of a notorious porno magazine.

• In Italy, a campaign for Schweppes Tonic Water translated the name into "Schweppes Toilet Water".

• Pepsi's "Come alive with the Pepsi Generation" translated into "Pepsi brings your ancestors back from the grave", in Chinese.

• Frank Perdue's chicken slogan, "it takes a strong man to make a tender chicken" was translated into Spanish as "it takes an aroused man to make a chicken affectionate".

• When Parker Pen marketed a ball-point pen in Mexico, its ads were supposed to have read, "it won't leak in your pocket and embarrass you". Instead, the company thought that the word "embarazar" (to impregnate) meant to embarrass, so the ad read: "It won't leak in your pocket and make you pregnant".

• The Coca-Cola name in China was first read as "Ke-kou-ke-la", meaning "Bite the wax tadpole" or "female horse stuffed with wax", depending on the dialect. Coke then researched 40,000 characters to find a phonetic equivalent "ko-kou-ko-le", translating into "happiness in the mouth".

kudos to Fridayfun.com for digging those up :)