Where words have very different meanings...

[JWC Super Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close JWC]

Know where you are before you "echar palo".

A young Venezuelan lady that I knew got herself into an embarrassing situation while attending an "open house" on a Mexican naval ship that visited Venezuela.

[Keitht Super Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close Keitht]

I can't remember either the make or model, but do recall a situation where the model name of a new car turned out to mean something very rude in Spanish.

[JWC Super Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close JWC]

I can't remember either the make or model, but do recall a situation where the model name of a new car turned out to mean something very rude in Spanish.

It was the Chevrolet Nova. No va means "won't go".

[T. R. Oglodyte Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close T. R. Oglodyte]

I can't remember either the make or model, but do recall a situation where the model name of a new car turned out to mean something very rude in Spanish.

Thirty or forty years ago General Motors produced a Chevrolet model named the Nova. There is totally-false internet fable that GM tried to sell the car in Mexico using the same name; "no va" in Spanish roughly means "doesn't go". However "nova" itself is a distinct in word, meaning "You/he/she renews/recommits/ (to an obligation)".

To assume a Spanish-speaking person would see "nova" and interpret it as "no go" is like an English-speaking person thinking that "profit" is an alteration done by a professional seamstress.

As I mentioned the story is completely false, but it has been repeated so often that it passes for fact, and is actually presented as fact in 'reputable" references. Here's the Snopes item on the Nova fable.

[BoardGirl Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close BoardGirl]

It was the Chevrolet Nova. No va means "won't go".

That's French not Spanish. Don't know the rude Spanish car!

[JWC Super Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close JWC]

That's French not Spanish. Don't know the rude Spanish car!

"No va" certainly is Spanish.

[PigsDad Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close PigsDad]

Fanny pack. Need I say more?

Kurt

[JWC Super Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close JWC]

The Chevrolet Nova was an issue in Mexico. I know this because we lived there and many of our Mexican relatives living there commented on it. It is true that there was a grade of Pemex gasoline called Nova. Trust me, if you used this grade, your vehicle would not go very far.

[vintner Super Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close vintner]

"No va" certainly is Spanish.

And as a former owner of a Nova, I can certainly it No Go and costs lot of money if you want it to go.

[Keitht Super Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close Keitht]

Finally found it.

The Mitsubishi four wheel drive marketed in Australia & the UK as the "Pajero" was the cause of great emabarassmentt in Spain where "Pajero" means "masturbater".

[Sydney Contributor - Bronze Find all posts View Profile Close Sydney]

Finally found it.

The Mitsubishi four wheel drive marketed in Australia & the UK as the "Pajero" was the cause of great emabarassmentt in Spain where "Pajero" means "masturbater".

[BoardGirl Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close BoardGirl]

"No va" certainly is Spanish.

Which doesn't preclude it from also being french.

i know 0 spanish, so should not have said, that's not Spanish, cuz, I dunno. sorry bout dat

I swear we had to conjugate this and "Tu va" would be You Go.

someone here speaks French, right? what is the French word for go?? forget the car, what am I thinking of if it isn't va?!?!

[BoardGirl Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close BoardGirl]

Finally found it.

The Mitsubishi four wheel drive marketed in Australia & the UK as the "Pajero" was the cause of great emabarassmentt in Spain where "Pajero" means "masturbater".

so, um, how were sales in Spain??

[JWC Super Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close JWC]

Which doesn't preclude it from also being french.

i know 0 spanish, so should not have said, that's not Spanish, cuz, I dunno. sorry bout dat

I swear we had to conjugate this and "Tu va" would be You Go.

someone here speaks French, right? what is the French word for go?? forget the car, what am I thinking of if it isn't va?!?!

I never said it wasn't French. I just said that it was Spanish. I am fluent in Spanish but do not speak French.

[Keitht Super Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close Keitht]

'Go' in French is 'Allez'.