Daily Diary

The choke is on you

Posted 23/05/2008 by The Daily Diary

Remember that HSBC advert about the dangers of accidentally offending business partners from very different cultures if you aren’t up to speed on local customs? One lawyer from Lovells recently fell foul of his Chinese hosts after an unfortunate case of ‘lost in translation’ potentially put the kybosh on the City giant’s relentless push into the key emerging market.

Having arrived in China with his business cards adorned only in English, the lawyer gave his name and contact details to a Chinese translator in order to get a bilingual version knocked up for potential clients.

However, evidently the lawyer did something to upset the translator – as revealed by the reactions of those to whom he gave the finished card, ranging from stifled sniggers to outright horror.

It seems the lawyer's name had been 'mis-translated' – perhaps by accident, perhaps not – into the rather market-unfriendly phrase ‘dog strangler’.

All of which makes David Beckham's erroneous Hebrew tattoo spelling 'Vihctoria' seem like rather small fry.