IMPULSES
P-Noy trivia, slogan translations
I have found out a very interesting trivia list from my idol historian Manuel L Quezon III. In case you haven’t read it, here are some of the most fascinating details found about Noynoy.
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He is the first unmarried president in the history of the country.
He is the first president with no children.
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The first deputy speaker of the House to later become president.
He is the first marksman to become president since Ferdinand Marcos (who belonged to the U.P. rifle team).
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He will be the first president since 1992 inaugurated into office without having been vice-president first.
He is the first to use the suffix -III (there have been no Juniors or the Thirds elected president previously).
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He is the first president to have a February birthday.
The second president from Tarlac.
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He is only the second president (Aguinaldo was the only non-drinker previously) who does not drink.
He is the second president to have studied at the Ateneo de Manila, but the first to have graduated from the Ateneo de Manila University.
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Benigno S. Aquino III is the third president with no spouse: Quirino was a widower, Corazon Aquino, a widow. Unlike Quirino and Corazon Aquino, who had children, Aquino III has none.
Aquino at 50 will be the third-youngest elected president (Magsaysay remains the youngest ever nationally-elected to the presidency), and the fourth-youngest president after Aguinaldo, Magsaysay and Marcos.
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He will be the third president who will only hold office in, but not be a resident of, Malacañan Palace, following Corazon Aquino and Fidel V. Ramos.
At age 50, is going to be the 15th President of the Philippines.
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He will be the 5th President of the 5th Republic. The present republic was established with the ratification of the 1987 Constitution. The previous republics are the First (Malolos, 1899-1901); Second (The Japanese Occupation, 1943-1945); the Third (from independence in 1946 to 1972); the Fourth (the “New Republic” proclaimed in 1981).
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He received over 15 million votes; his winning margin was over 5 million votes.
Aquino is also the fifth public smoker to be president: Quezon, Roxas, Garcia, Estrada were/are all smokers.
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The ninth president to have served as a congressman.
The tenth senator to become a president.
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Aquino III, who will likely use the Aquino family bible his mother used, will be the ninth president to swear on a bible and the second to use the same bible.
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Here now are the jokes of the day… the worst slogan translations ever:
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.” 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.”
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Scandinavian vacuum manufacturer Electrolux used the following in an American campaign: “Nothing Sucks like an Electrolux.”
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Clairol introduced the “Mist Stick,” a curling iron, into Germany only to find out that “mist” is slang for manure. Not too many people had use for the “Manure Stick.”
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Coors put its slogan, “Turn It Loose,” into Spanish, where it was read as “Suffer From Diarrhea.”
Pepsi’s “Come Alive With the Pepsi Generation” translated into “Pepsi Brings Your Ancestors Back From the Grave” in Chinese.
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When Gerber started selling baby food in Africa, they used the same packaging as in the US, with the smiling baby on the label. Later they learned that in Africa, companies routinely put pictures on the labels of what’s inside, since many people can’t read.
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Colgate introduced a toothpaste in France called Cue, the name of a notorious porno magazine.
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.”
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When American Airlines wanted to advertise its new leather first class seats in the Mexican market, it translated its “Fly In Leather” campaign literally, which meant “Fly Naked” (vuela en cuero) in Spanish.
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An American T-shirt maker in Miami printed shirts for the Spanish market which promoted the Pope’s visit. Instead of “I saw the Pope” (el Papa), the shirts read “I Saw the Potato” (la papa).
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The Dairy Association’s huge success with the campaign “Got Milk?” prompted them to expand advertising to Mexico. It was soon brought to their attention the Spanish translation read “Are You Lactating?”
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General Motors had a very famous fiasco in trying to market the Nova car in Central and South America. “No va” in Spanish means, “It Doesn’t Go”.
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The Coca-Cola name in China was first read as “Kekoukela”, 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 “kokoukole”, translating into “Happiness in the Mouth.”
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Random Quotes:
No one gossips about other people’s secret virtues.—Bertrand Russel
O Lord, thou knowest how busy I must be this day; if I forget thee, do not thou forget me.—Sir Jacob Astley
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Compliments are given to the very informative websites of local newspapers, The Philippine Daily Inquirer, The Philippine Star, ABS-CBN Network, PNA, PIA, joke-of-the-day.com, and The Business World.
(Engr. Herman Lagon, who “Facebookly” describes himself as a “social scientist,” is a physics teacher and a PhD. student in Math. He may be reached through h_lagon@yahoo.com.)
