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When you are an English speaker living in a non English speaking country you occasionally come across store names which are humorous or downright appalling when parsed through the English language brain. Even when you know they make sense in your current country’s native language, there still remains something quite not right about the name.
Most of the time I try to be mature about store names which raise a WTF? when processed by my English brain, especially when in German they are fine. This is why it took me a while to really notice the name of this store.
You see, the German word for mobile phone is Handy and well mobile phones plans have caps and I wasn’t really paying attention to what it would sound like if you actually said the store’s name.
However, I just recently noticed or they just recently put up a sign to denote customer packing and I could not fail to notice the inappropriateness of the store name for English speakers.
And then all my pretences about being mature went away and I laughed at the sign for a good 5 minutes and then took pictures. This really is one of the joys of living in Germany – being totally immature about store names.
I always used to laugh at the Mister Lady stores.
Stuff like this always makes me laugh.
I giggle like a ten year old every time I use public transportation in Nürnberg – VAG. Hehehe.
Honestly, that is a very stupid name even for us Germans. I know the shop and always wonder what made them choose that name when I go past it.
I agree, it is not a great name in German either, but it does make some kind of sense and isn’t as cringe worthy as it is when you think about it in English.
I don’t know. I am one of the Germans who finds the name “Handy” for a mobile phone more than silly. Cos thats pure Denglisch. All Germans should know by now what a handicap is, even if it is most used for sports. And a “cap” isn’t German either. It’s one of the more embarrassing cases of failing while trying to be extra-cool. German is such a lovely language, but I guess since WWII nothing German is cool any more. So whoever wants to be hip and chic has to use English. It must seem really odd to natives like you.
But maybe it’s just me being old and grumpy.
I do find random uses of English in German ads or store signs really, really odd, especially when there is no reason to use it. I agree that German is a great language, even though I struggle with it, and it is a shame to see English being used more and more when there is no need for it.