Bite the Wax Tadpole: Difference between revisions

 

{{examples}}

== Beverages (non-alcoholic) ==

* This trope is [[Trope Namer|named for]] one of the classic examples, an attempt to transliterate "Coca-Cola" into Chinese; the right sounds were used, but the wrong ''characters'' were written, with the result that instead of advertising soft drinks, the consumption of [[Expospeak Gag|paraffin larval amphibians was encouraged]]. ([http://snopes.com/cokelore/tadpole.asp Note that this was never the official name]; rather, before there was an official Mandarin version, shopkeepers who sold Coke would use whichever transliteration they wanted). [[Dave Barry]] declared "Bite the Wax Tadpole" to be "the best name I ever heard for a soft drink." (The closest "bite the wax tadpole" could ever get to sounding like Coca-Cola would be 齰蝌蚪蜡 - cuòkēdǒulà. Close, but no cigar.)

** Russian opera singer Feodor Chaliapin, a real-life [[Gentle Giant]], told the same story on himself. He was sitting next to a timid young French girl at a very fancy dinner party. Apparently the embarrassed/pregnant mistake can happen in French too, because he tried to say "You are shy" and she blushed crimson, muttered something and excused herself. When he found out later he'd said "you are pregnant" he could have died of embarrassment himself. Awww.

* IKEA got in trouble when it advertised its "Gutvik" brand bunk beds in Germany—because while "Gutvik" is the name of a town in Sweden, it's an explicit sexual reference in German.<ref>Albeit a grammatically wrong one; it sounds a lot like the expression "guter Fick," meaning "good fuck" or "good lay." ''Gut'' without an ending here wouldn't make sense.</ref>

*** The word "Frak" is in the original 70's series as well, it's just not [[Cluster F-Bomb|used every 5th line]] like it is in the reimagining.

*** "Frak" is also Swedish for "naughty". And, yes, it has the same connotations...